


Ad Valorem

by Astrinde



Category: Robin of Sherwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-27 09:53:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 71,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrinde/pseuds/Astrinde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The treasures of life are often not the possessions accumulated on the journey.  In this novella, the young Robert de Rainault grows into the brooding, formidable Sheriff of Nottingham, as the experiences of his life — for all their value — also take their toll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dust

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Five fine fabrics (and five executions, too)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/884343) by [elektra121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elektra121/pseuds/elektra121). 



> Though the chapters form a complete story, each chapter may stand alone, and is different in tone, style, and warnings from the others. Please read the notes at the beginning of each section!
> 
> A playlist for this story may be found on YouTube, under user _primordialmuse_ , titled _Ad Valorem_.
> 
> I'm game for any feedback, positive or negative. And if you'd like more reading material, this story relates to all of my others - _The Inquiry, Aim and Arrow_ , _Devoir_ , and _Severance_ \- all of which are posted here on the Archive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter serves as a prologue to the novella and is suitable for everyone, with no warnings. It is set in Normandy, the year 1169.

      The old chute had been inexpertly covered; what remained of a once-smooth plaster façade had fissured deeply, and the cracks sometimes sent down showers of dust, as though shedding a winter coat. Parts of the wall had crumbled away, leaving a pocket of inner chamber accessible, though mostly invisible — except to the eyes of an inquisitive boy. It was the perfect hiding-space for the slight child, who believed himself entitled to hear any conversation mentioning his name, and had just spent an enlightening half-hour listening to exactly that. True, his parents had discussed only matters of exceeding dullness – mostly the arrangements for some saint’s day observance the following week – but it pleased Robert tremendously to know that he could stow away here at any time, overseeing their affairs and perhaps holding that privileged information over his siblings. He would have patted his own backside for his cleverness, had he been able to reach it; at present, the contortions necessitated by his confinement made any movement something of an ordeal.  
      He was just starting to question his uncomfortable plan when the chamber's door was loudly shoved open; the disturbance allowed Robert to hurriedly shift pressure from his aching limbs. He sighed in relief, then held back a sneeze at the little flurry of powder his motion created. A quite justified irritation followed: who had dared disturb his family’s counsel, and without even the courtesy of tapping a greeting? But the question quieted itself quickly. There was only one person in the de Rainault home who lacked the manners or the patience to knock, especially when she was preoccupied by more important matters, like driving her elder brother to distraction; oh, he’d promised to play with her that day, but only to get rid of her the day before! Robert closed his eyes, guessing from wearying experience that she’d not forgotten, and bracing himself for the imperious, inevitable—  
      “Where is Robiers?”  
      Just once, he would have liked to hear Père explain that _Robiers_ was not responsible for entertaining her at every moment, or better still, scold her for her rude entrance, or at least suggest that she go bother Hugo or Édouard instead. But, although fathers weren’t _supposed_ to have favourites — and it really _wasn’t_ fair to humour Héloïse at his expense — he heard an indulgent smile in the reply. “That is a question! Shall we go find him?”  
      Her answer was a wordless squeal, as their father swept her up and bore her from the room; Robert smiled in triumphant glee, knowing that the ensuing search would be blessedly futile. This dusty cubbyhole seemed a better idea with every minute, and he'd soon have relief from it, for only his mother remained in the room. He listened carefully, waiting for her to leave the chamber and free him from his cramped hideaway. But she did not depart, and the line between his brows furrowed deeper as he heard the swish of her skirts, the wheeze of a chair. Uncomfortably, he tried to change position without producing sound, wondering if she intended to stay long. But he could hear no clue, neither the plunk of a lyre nor the click of an embroidery frame—  
      “Robert.”  
      He went absolutely still, trying even to breathe inaudibly, though his heart beat loudly in his ears. Her voice had been gentle, and his startled thoughts seized upon the possibility that she was praying; perhaps she offered devotion to some obscure saint Robert, for whom he’d been named. He could hope—  
      “ _Robert_.” This time the word issued warning against disobedience, its remonstration putting a chill into his stomach.  
      He sighed. She’d never speak so to a _sanctus_ ; that voice was reserved to scold her mischief-making children, and Robert knew its stern tone well. Glumly, he wriggled into plain sight and stood up defensively, but any dignity he’d hoped to salvage dissolved into a loud, wet sneeze. And when he removed his face from the bend of his elbow, he saw the woollen sleeve made pallid by a coating of dust. With worry-widened eyes, he looked up at his mother, already dreading the penance she would assign.  
      To Robert’s surprise, her mouth went tight, the way it did when she was swallowing laughter. She leaned forward and brushed off his tunic and hair with firm strokes, then wetted a handkerchief and scraped it over his face, teasing him for his resemblance to the flue. Robert fidgeted impatiently, unhappy to have his clever discovery revealed, irritated that his mother’s eyes seemed to find him everywhere. But it behooved him to show penitence, while she made his appearance more suitable and then chided him for his subterfuge. And his contrite frown must have helped his case, for she chastised him only a little, then patted her chair in invitation and bade him sit a while with her.  
      He supposed it was alright, since there was no-one else present to see him behave like a little boy. So he clambered into the space beside her and sagged into the soft seat; she began a tale then, all about a blind mother and the many funny tricks played her by a _kobold_. The activity wasn't exactly dignified, but an afternoon of hearing faerie-stories was far preferable to enduring some boring punishment. Mothers weren’t supposed to have favourites either, but as his head drooped sleepily onto her shoulder, he decided that — every once in a while — this particular unfairness suited him very well indeed.


	2. Adamant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also needs no warnings; it is set in Normandy, the year 1170.

"Accordingly, it appears that power itself, the real power, is preserved by law and justice."  
—from the _Anonymus Iamblichi_

"But look, I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are.  
I have made your face like an adamant and like flint:  
fear them not, neither be dismayed at their presence."  
— _Ezekiel_ 3:8-9

      The boy was warm, and cradled softly by a fresh-changed mattress beneath him, and he blinked bleary eyes towards the window, looking for the sun. But then he felt the down shift and sag from another weight at his side, and realised that there was a chill in the morning air, and that his comfort had little to do with the capricious spring and far more with—  
      “Hélô,” he sighed, wrinkling his patrician nose. There was a small arm lying over his ribs; he threw it off impatiently and turned, with what he intended to be a very fierce gaze, though its ferocity was lost in the darkness.  
      “Robiers,” she answered, pleased that her brother wasn't truly angry. On worse mornings, he would call her _Héloïse_ , and cuff her about the head and shoulders until he had driven her from his chambers.  
      But still, the girl did as she pleased, and that included running to his room whenever—  
      “I had a bad dream,” she whined.  
      “So did many others,” the boy murmured sleepily. “They aren't in my bed.”  
      She nestled into his shoulder. “There was a monster. With rough fur and pointy teeth. He wanted to eat you.”  
      “Are you sure it wasn't a _she_ -monster?” inquired her brother. “An irksome creature who tried to devour all of the space in my little bed?”  
      “No!”  
      “Then you should have told _him_ to find a better meal,” he chided. But she was silent, and so his next words were kinder. “Was there any more?”  
      “I don't know,” she responded drowsily, which meant she could remember nothing else. “Robiers...I have decided. I don't like Mass. I don’t want to go anymore.”  
      That was surprising and irreverent enough to startle her brother who, at almost-nine years, was man enough to see danger in saying such things lightly. “Héloïse!” he said sharply.  
      “I don't!” she protested. “Father Alain said you'd go away. That cannot be the word of God! That isn’t _fair_.”  
      A shadow between the boy's eyes deepened. “When d—”  
      “In the reading.” And when her brother did not look sufficiently upset, she continued. “He said that a man would...would leave his home...”  
      Now he understood. “—his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.”  
      “Yes!” she exclaimed. “That's awful!”  
      Robert sighed; it had been a pleasant enough morning, and he was not feeling desirous of argument with an annoying little sister. Having only five years, she was of course unequal to understanding such things. “It's how things happen. One day you'll be someone's wife, and go with him.” _And let me sleep in peace, and it will be a very happy day,_ he nearly added.  
      A fist drove into his ribs and nearly knocked the wind out of him. “I will _not!_ That is...that is...replusive!”  
      He pressed his lips together to keep back laughter. “Repulsive.”  
      She threw her shoulders back onto the mattress with a vengeance. “I have decided. The priest should not say such things. You shall not go away. Then I won't have bad dreams.”  
      Robert smiled at that. All she knew of rhetoric were his grammar school lessons — which she demanded he repeat to her, the moment he returned — so he couldn’t fault her idea of cause-and-effect.  
      The sounds of night birds and insects hushed, yielding to the rising songs of morning; the sky grew radiant with soft rainbow hues, and ribbons of rosy light crept over the horizon like a maiden's fingers. Quietly they lay side by side and watched, and when her blonde head leaned softly onto his dark one, he didn’t protest.  
      “I dreamed too,” he offered gently.  
      She turned away from the small window to look at him, but he fell back into his habitual quiet, looking at a swath of green valley as it slowly brightened. When he said nothing, she guessed. “The same dream?”  
      He nodded.  
      She knew it well enough to speak it back to him. There was a shining thing that looked like a blade but wasn't. There was a man made of metal, with gems for eyes. And there were other things, too — a ship, a strange shape divided by a sharp line — and everything in a weird fog. It was always the same, and without sense.  
      The sun finally began to show its face, enough to see by its light. The household would rouse soon. It was the first day of the week, and that meant the library, and the sooner he could prepare himself, the sooner they'd depart.  
      “Go,” he instructed.  
      But she just burrowed her head into the pillow — _his_ pillow! — and shut her eyes firmly.  
      Well, no man of almost-nine let a little girl order him about, and so he pulled the cushion from under her head, and endured her squealing and scuffling, and finally sent her running as he would a recalcitrant servant.  
      At last rid of the noisome baby, Robert darted to the washbasin, where he scrubbed cold water about his face and arms, paying careful attention to his hands, until he was wakened and cleansed. His night shift was quickly changed for soft grey hose and his best tunic, a becoming garment of elderberry purple. Then he peered into his small mirror of polished brass and scowled at a displeasing reflection of hair strewn carelessly by sleep; quickly he took up a comb and fought down the mess.  
      When his appearance was neat and fine, he rushed to the dining table, where the maid, knowing well his habits on this day, had already set steaming bread and a bowl of strong refreshing tea for him. And since Robert had vested himself with his best clothes, and his best air of dignity, he only nodded coolly to his father when the latter appeared. The tall, fair-haired man smiled in reply to his little son, whose eagerness shone all too clearly despite his aloof pretense.  
      After breaking fast, the two tied on their boots and made ready to depart. All around them flew the sounds of a small but industrious household: the rasp of the chambermaid's besom as she swept the corridors, the clatters of earthenware and hisses of frying oil from the kitchen, the twins slamming doors gracelessly as they ran about. Robert stepped onto the porch and felt a strong cool wind from the west, stealing the apple blossoms' fragrance and carrying it to his nose; he sniffed surreptitiously while he waited, listening with impatient ears as his father ducked into the tiny nursery. There his mother sat with his youngest brother Édouard, who could not yet speak and therefore held no interest for Robert.  
      “Be well,” his mother said, in cheerful farewell. Then she raised her voice enough to ensure Robert’s hearing. “And Hélias, keep that changeling-boy from mischief! Who knows what the fae will tell him to do today?”  
      _Muer_ , sighed Robert to himself. A year ago he would have laughed and protested just as loudly. Now he said nothing as his father appeared, and they set out together towards the pretty painted manor in the distance.  
      The estate of the Visconte de Cléville lay two miles distant from their cottage; it was a pleasant enough walk, though it couldn’t pass quickly enough for Robert. As they strode side by side, Hélias de Rainault kept to his eldest boy's unspoken rule: he took the youth's hand, but dropped it instantly if anyone of significance passed them. The day Luner simply began an ordinary work week for the seneschal, but he knew it was the best and most important day of all the week for his son.  
      Two years before, Hélias had asked leave to bring Robert to the manor with him, to acquaint the boy with the air and custom of the fine house. Permission had been graciously granted, and so Robert had come. But the dignified invitation had quickly lost its appeal, as Robert sat silently and stiffly while the men discussed the fortnight's employment of the servants. Finally, the miserably bored youth crept away, began wandering about, and at last discovered a far more engrossing place: the library.  
      There rested many loose papers and perhaps ten scrolls, among two wooden desks and a series of high shelves; it was a wealth of learning such as the child had never seen. One scroll rested open on a table, with a stylus marking the master's place. Robert stared, greedily filling his eyes with words, and quite forgot to seal shut the entrance behind him; thus had a servant spotted him and made nervous report to the Visconte that a strange boy lurked among his collections. De Cléville had whipped his head around the drawing-room and then glared furiously at Hélias, muttering a most un-gentle remark as he rose from his seat.  
      They rushed to the library — Hélias dreading the ruinous debt he might already owe — where they expected to see a naughty mischief-maker, playing with scrolls as if flinging piles of fall leaves. Instead, they found the child holding a wand in a gentle hand, tracing lines of text word by word. The flame-haired nobleman stared curiously; he'd given permission himself for Robert to be educated in the grammar school, and had been told that the boy already excelled in his studies. But whatever inexplicable love the seneschal's babe had for letters, it mattered far less than the threat of grubby child hands despoiling his _very_ expensive folios, and the Visconte’s commanding shout was sharp and startling. “Come away at once, boy! I'll not have you playing with things beyond your understanding!”  
      The shy child shrank before the angry glares of two grown men, but something seemed to steel inside of him at de Cléville’s final words. He carefully set down the stylus and, as he did so, read aloud slowly. “First, he ought to consider what effects each season of the year can produce. For the seasons are not at all alike, but differ widely, both in themselves and at their changes.” The scroll contained the work of Hippocrates, with the author's original Greek translated into fine Latin; its meaning had just been rendered, in their common Norman tongue, by a child having all of seven years.  
      And so, today, as on every Luner for the past two years, Robert stayed back from the grammar school. Instead, he walked with Hélias to de Cléville's estate, where the men would discuss the day's duties as Robert lingered for a blissful three hours — unheard-of indulgence! — among the thick parchments and strong-smelling ink of the library. The boy had vowed himself to take great care with the texts and not give cause for his privilege to be revoked, and for all of his mother's teasing, he comported himself with rigorous dignity.  
      Thus was the head of the week a time for pleasure and pride, and Robert shook away the morning's irritations as he walked with his father. They ambled past his mother's vegetables and tangling herbs, and still further, beyond the grazing land of their animals. The familiar, if not always pleasant, scents of thyme and manure, wool and hay, mixed with apple blossom in his nose, and the vigorous wind brought colour to his sallow face, and the crush of grass beneath his feet was springy and encouraging to his low mood.  
      Once he would have felt mirth from his mother's parting words; now that he was an almost-man, he didn't smile at the jest anymore. Oh, he knew the story behind it well enough: he'd come four weeks too soon, during the Mabon night, a bad time to be born. And when his mother's midwife and maidservants had seen him — a dark, small boy-child who little resembled his kin — they'd fearfully insisted he was a changeling, left in place of the robust boy stolen by the wicked kith. As Liliane de Gascur possessed a strong Christian faith and a scorn for silly superstitions, she had made it a common joke, the ridiculous idea that her firstborn and favourite son was not her own.  
      But sometimes, Robert wondered at the thought. He had grown neither fair nor vigorous, and on occasion suffered bouts of ill temper or spells of poor health, and there were youths who took mean delight in taunting him — the weakling "fae boy" who'd probably been born to gutter-cleaners in the Otherworld. And then there were the times that he witnessed a man or woman turn away from him and whisper words beyond his hearing. They were only poor peasants, and it should have been beneath his notice, but he little liked the thought that people murmured protective wards at his passing.  
      At least this day’s walk was blissfully free of such nonsense, and Robert held his head higher as he and his father reached the manor home. They unshod their feet, and Robert distractedly bowed to the Visconte, then rushed for the library as soon as courtesy allowed. He didn't witness the indulgent laughter of the two men at his wind-like attention, and he wouldn't have cared for the gentle chuckling if he'd heard it, for he had never forgotten the Visconte's unjust anger. For all that Robert adored the library, he hadn't liked its owner since.  
      He pushed open the door slowly and shut it behind him, with the reverence of an acolyte approaching a temple sanctum. Several loose pages lay strewn about, but by his habit, Robert picked up the stylus and began reading where de Cléville's eyes had stopped. Whether the text was interesting or not was hardly the point; any book good enough for the arrogant man with the fire-hair was certainly good enough for him.  
      _And surely it is necessary for every man to be very self-disciplined to a special degree. He would be particularly self-disciplined if he should be superior to the influence of money, for it is in respect to this that all are corrupted—_  
      Robert stared incredulously, noting the rolls of vellum that had surely cost hundreds, if not thousands, of marks, resting in the fine room of a vast home, and thought about the Visconte and his Lady and the great lands they owned. How strange that the Visconte should read such a thing, which seemed to condemn him as a most corrupt man!  
      He skimmed down. _And they love possessions because of the following things which frighten them: What are these? Sickness, old age, sudden penalties or losses – I do not mean penalties of the laws, for it is possible to take precautions and be on one's guard against incurring these, but such penalties or losses as conflagrations, the deaths of members of one's household, of animals, and other misfortunes, of which some pertain to the body, others to the soul, and others to one's estate. Because of all these misfortunes, in order that he may be in a position to use his money to meet these contingencies, every man desires wealth._  
      Robert considered those words for a while. He remembered going with his father to purchase a lamb, after the murrain struck their flocks, and listening closely while Hélias bargained the price as low as he could. He recalled also the occasion that the physician had come to their cottage; not only had Hugo recovered, but his horror at the shiny black bloodsuckers had made Robert laugh and laugh, so _that_ had surely been coin well-spent. Then he suddenly remembered the healer’s diagnosis of Hugo, _phlegmatic_. Robert realised that he now knew that word’s meaning and understood why the leech had been employed, and his shoulders squared with pride as he returned to his reading.  
      _But there are some other factors....ambitious rivalry with one another, jealousy, and the exercise of political power — situations in which they consider money of great importance, because it is helpful for such purposes._  
      Robert looked towards the door, again recalling the Visconte's rage to find him sitting among these texts. Something about the words _helpful for such purposes_ reminded him of this costly library. He gazed around the room and bit the tip of his thumb while he pondered. He thought about how other children talked of the great Visconte and his estates, children who had never met the lord nor seen his home from within. De Cléville was known as learned, because he could draw and read letters and even had vellums of his own. He was called wise, and so other people respected his ideas and opinions — even when, Robert recalled bitterly, his judgments were _wrong_. But de Cléville had money to fill this library, and the library lent him a good reputation, and _that_ gave him authority.  
      Thus Robert pieced together his ideas to understand that money was indeed of great importance, both to guard against loss and to gain useful things. And so the youth continued, reading and thinking throughout the morning, and he found his text to contain much wisdom and good sense, save for some tiresome bother about virtue and the soul. This he ignored for, like Hélô, he disliked such preaching, though _he_ was not foolish enough to say it aloud.  
      At last he reached the ending, and read it thrice over, his eyes drinking in the words.  
      _Whenever these two, law and justice, depart from the people, then the guardianship and protection of these people pass into the hands of one man. For how otherwise could sole authority pass into the hands of one man, unless the law which was in the interests of the people had already been driven out? This man, who is to depose justice and take away the law which is common to all and expedient for all, must be as hard as adamant, if he is going to strip this away from the people, since he is one and they are many. If he were only human and like everybody else he would not be able to do this; but, on the contrary, if he were to reestablish what had already ceased to exist, he could be sole ruler._  
      The phrases were like music dropping quietly into his mind, tapping away at his thoughts with the insistence of a falling hammer. The stylus dropped from his slack fingers, but he did not notice it.  
      His sister always said _I have decided,_ to announce the necessity of doing anything she wished. Was this not what she, in her silly little-girl way, tried to dictate? Was this not what his father invoked when he set down rules? His mother, when she meted out stern punishment? Each of them, their own law?  
      _Sole ruler._  
      As he thought, the world began to change its face for Robert de Rainault. Like the chants of the churchmen, the words _hard as adamant_ resonated; they repeated in his dawning thoughts, which tumbled over each other like colours mixing in the early sky.  
      He did not fully understand the power in those passages. But _hard as adamant,_ this he understood. A blade was sharper and of sterner stuff than flesh; it could cut a man's soul loose from his body. This he knew, but no-one had before suggested that a man could make his inner self strong like a weapon.  
      Robert rolled up the scroll slowly, carefully, looking for the beginning, and another line caught his eye.  
      _—we can conclude, then, that because of these necessities Law and Justice are kings among men, and that they could in no way change, for by nature they have been firmly fixed._  
      _If there should be anyone who had from the beginning of his life, a nature such as we shall describe: if he should be invulnerable, not subject to disease, free from emotion, extraordinary, and hard as adamant in body and soul—_  
      The words sang to him, as if scribed for him alone.  
      _Firmly fixed. Invulnerable...free from emotion....hard as adamant._  
      Robert’s dark brown eyes, deep like wells, settled upon the polished wooden table for a long time, looking at nothing while he thought.  
      Hélias de Rainault had left an excited boy to the library that Lundi, and so he wondered at the aloof youth who awaited him when it was time to depart. He saw a peculiar mettle in his son's distant gaze; suddenly, he remembered the day they'd found Robert among the scrolls, when he'd defied the lord with the lord's own learning. And Hélias continued to worry after they reached home, for the normally gentle boy pushed away eager questions from Héloïse, then glared at her twin so viciously that fear overcame Hugo's usual jealous remarks. There was something in Robert’s aspect that reminded Hélias of the crafty de Cléville, and that worried him most of all.  
      That night, Robert lay in his bed and honed unfamiliar dreams upon the whetstone of a new resolve. There was something in those words, _hard as adamant_ , which made promises about a life beyond boys who hated knowledge, and the Visconte with his glares, and all of their unfair words and wards. Robert could not make himself grow taller, or broader, or richer as yet. But he could sharpen his mind beyond all such things, and then — well, then, who knew what he might become?


	3. Silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter are bullying and child/character death. It is set in Normandy, the year 1175.

"I have refined you, but not like silver. I have tested you in the furnace of suffering."  
— _Isaiah_ 48:10

      Though he emerged into sunlight, though the afternoon was unseasonably and quite pleasantly warm, Robert shivered and then sighed. Lessons that morning had been dull, and the shape of the day's remainder was already unpleasant; he was feeling poorly, and that meant the observant Master de Trémoille would probably work with him closely as a demonstration, a practice of endurance. The armsmaster had told them many times that an opponent wouldn't tread lightly in fighting a sick or injured youth and, in fact, would hope for just such an advantage. Of course he was right, but that didn't make it any easier to enter the practice-yard, knowing that the keen instructor would seize upon him at once.  
      As he coughed — yes, the Master would _certainly_ notice, he thought with dismay — he ignored the small knots of students idling in conversation and instead looked left and right on the road. Héloïse usually came sprinting out of the trees to meet him, then accompanied him to the manor house, peppering him with questions the entire way. At first, he'd been terribly embarrassed by her solicitude, had pointed out that none of the other youths were accosted by younger siblings at the end of the day. But he’d learned that it was easier to let her walk alongside him, rather than face her potent little furies when he returned home. Her demands to hear his lessons were actually helpful — though he'd never tell her that — since reciting the words helped him retain them. And he realised, as he scanned the empty road, that he even enjoyed her company along the way, not that he would say such a thing.  
      So Robert studied the paths, and he didn't see, behind him, the three large youths who spoke to Hugo with smirking friendliness. And he didn't notice when they nudged the boy forward, nodding their heads in Robert's direction.  
      “Robert?” Hugo asked hesitantly, from behind him.  
      He turned and impatiently acknowledged his brother. “Hugo.”  
      “Héloïse is kept at home today. I'll walk with you, if you like?” Hugo offered.  
      Robert opened his mouth to refuse. Hugo's company was usually insipid, his frequent excuse “God's will” when he didn't feel like thinking about something. And Robert didn't like the boy's friends, the three biggest and meanest youths in their class, who pushed around the smaller children simply because they could. But then he remembered their mother's admonishments, scolding him and Héloïse for excluding Hugo so much. And though he'd tried to explain to Muer that the circumstance of consanguinity did not guarantee kindred affections — well, she’d been less than impressed by his carefully reasoned arguments.  
      So he nodded acceptance and gestured down the road. They walked together amiably enough, and when Robert mentioned the day's lesson, Hugo began talking about it animatedly, with an enthusiasm of tumbling words. Robert had never known Hugo to enjoy their studies quite so much, but it was just as well, since he didn't feel much like talking; it was better that he save his breath for the lesson still to come.  
      So he listened to Hugo, and Robert didn't see the three young men — who each had a year's age and a few inches of height over him — run into the trees to pass quickly, quietly ahead of the brothers, then stop near a group of large boulders, where the road curved.  
      Robert and Hugo had another mile to walk still, when something flew out of a copse of trees and landed near Robert's feet with a loud thud. Hugo stopped chattering and seemed confused; Robert looked around, but saw nothing of significance. Curiously, he bent down to look at the object. It was a large rounded rock, and he picked it up to examine it.  
      But Robert had no time to wonder about its provenance, as the trio who’d followed them rushed out from a hiding-place behind the standing stones. Hugo jumped back skittishly as one of his “friends” — a tow-headed brute named Florian — kicked up road dust into Robert's face. Robert hissed at the sting, flinching back, trying to keep his balance with grime in his eyes. Florian barked a loud laugh, and Guillaume grabbed the tottering youth. Then the three boys pulled Robert into the copse while he struggled; Hugo remained behind, standing by the road.  
      The merry winds through the trees might have been pleasant under other circumstances, but there was nothing good in it now; the foliage hid them well from view. Robert's arms and legs were firmly pinned, while Guillaume straddled Robert's ribs and then hit him almost playfully across the cheek. What was a simple swat for a strong fist hit Robert's thin cheek hard; his face snapped away. Then Guillaume grasped his cheeks and made him look up to the three faces that loomed over him.  
      “Look at the proud little popinjay,” Guillaume announced angrily. “Thinks he's a lordling now, learning how to stick his nose in the air. But what about disrespecting your _fellows_ , de Rainault?” He slapped the boy furiously. “What do your fancy noble folk say about _that?_ ” Then he picked up the collar of the youth's tunic and pulled his face close, while Florian and Bernard sniggered.  
      Robert blinked through his pain, trying to understand what the words meant. “What are you talki—”  
      “Oh, surely you know,” Guillaume interrupted, dropping the smaller youth’s shoulders with a smug smile. When no answer came, he struck Robert again. Robert squeezed his eyes shut and turned away; he could feel his eye painfully swelling, and something wet and thin trailed down his nose to his mouth.  
      “Dogs, are we? Useless folk learning useless nonsense?” taunted Bernard, slamming the youth's arm hard onto the earth; Robert bit back a cry, and wound up coughing instead.  
      “Well? Show us some of that fine training you've gotten, _boy_ ,” Guillaume instructed. Then he laughed to his fellows. “Let's see the little pup's tricks!”  
      Robert strove against them as much as he could, but three on one wasn't fair, it wasn't _fair_ , and if he got out of this he was going to _kill_ his brother...  
      Guillaume squeezed Robert's cheeks in a strong grip. Robert snapped viciously at the offending hand, but couldn't get his mouth near enough to strike, and Guillaume seemed to find it very amusing. “Look! The pup can bite!”  
      “I wonder if he can yelp?” Florian suggested, then kicked Robert hard in the leg. Robert tried to make no sound; he held his mouth firmly shut, but the resultant strangled noise from his throat made Florian grin.  
      “I can speak,” Robert choked out. “Without being so _stupid_ —“  
      But a sharp fist to the stomach took away his breath.  
      “I think those lessons are useless. We should give him a better one,” Guillaume suggested. His eyes gleamed as he reached to his waist and unsheathed the small working knife he wore.  
      Then Robert felt the chill of fear, making his breath grow short and his pain seem little. But he clung to his bravado desperately, remembering de Trémoille, _they'll watch for just such an opportunity!_ He couldn't show how badly frightened he was.  
      “I could do us _all_ a service...cut out that foul tongue for you,” the ringleader continued. “What do you say to _that?_ ” He seized Robert's neck and drew the knife along his cheek softly.  
      Frantically Robert thought, trying to keep his wits about him. He couldn't run, and he'd get hurt if he tried to scream, not that Hugo would even come if he did. The thought of his own brother involved with this betrayal, even _relishing_ it maybe, infuriated him. His blood raced, and he struggled mightily against their grips. But Guillaume only tsked at him and brandished the knife, shaking it playfully.  
      “Guillaume—” Bernard said, sounding hesitant.  
      “Shut up!” Guillaume shouted.  
      Bernard and Florian looked at each other.  
      “He's had enough,” persisted Bernard. “Come on—”  
      “Has he?”  
      _Size isn't an excuse, boy!_ Robert recalled through his terror. _The scorpion and the snake are both smaller than you are!_  
      He couldn't fight them. But he could _think_...  
      Robert's eyes rolled back, and he fell slack.  
      Florian loosed the arm he held and jumped up. “ _Guillaume,_ ” he whined.  
      Bernard's question was nervous. “He's just...playing?”  
      “Course he is!” Guillaume exclaimed, smacking the blood-streaked face beneath him. But the “popinjay” didn't move. “Or swooned like a girl!”  
      “Guillaume!” Bernard cried.  
      Bernard and Guillaume stood up quickly, and all was silent for several moments, save the wind rustling the leaves. Then Guillaume spoke again. “He breathes,” he announced to them all. “He'll wake.”  
      A heavy footfall grew closer until reaching the clearing — Hugo could no longer stand the sounds of scuffle and shout, it seemed — and Guillaume's voice dropped, becoming low and terrifying. “You make _sure_ he keeps that vicious mouth shut, from now on. You tell anybody — or _he_ does — and _you're_ next.”  
      Then the three boys retreated quickly, their insolent laughter and sickening boasts about the incident gradually fading away, as they took off down the road and passed out of hearing. Hugo dropped to his knees next to his brother and shook Robert's shoulders in a panic.  
      The youth opened his eyes and glared warningly at the shrinking boy, who loosed him immediately. Then Robert stood under his own power, and once he steadied himself, he grabbed Hugo by the tunic. And Hugo's face puckered with fear, his blue eyes wide and scared; _good_ , Robert thought fiendishly, for the boy had well _earned_ a little taste of the afternoon's work!  
      During the prior evening, Robert had argued with their father about his lessons; he didn't want to attend the grammar school any more, wanted more time in the library and for weapons practice, for the arms training that de Cléville had granted him the year before. Frustrated by reviewing the same worn texts again and again, Robert had called the school a useless education for the freedmen, who would only serve the King in fields of food and war. And when Père tried to remind him of reputation and propriety, Robert had answered angrily that the families of Kaem reminded him of a pack of dogs, snapping their jaws about each other's doings.  
      But they'd argued in their home and, Robert had _thought_ , in _private_.  
      His terrified _coward_ of a brother tried to speak. “Robert, I-I didn't know they'd—“  
      Robert cut him off. Even with only ten years, Hugo couldn't be _that_ naïve; what had he thought, that the loutish bullies would just forget such words? “Dogs?” he shouted.  
      Hugo's face went even more sour. “I didn't say it! You did!”  
      “Not for your ears! And not for you to repeat to your little _friends!_ ”  
      “You're the one who called us _all_ dogs!” Hugo cried. “While you trot after that lord's feet like you're so much _better_ —”  
      Robert shoved past his brother; he would be late if he didn't move along, to what was sure to be a truly rotten lesson now. His racking cough was unpleasant, but at least it disguised the sudden pull in his throat, the sting in his eyes. “Then you go trot after those idiots, Hugo, and be as stupid as _they_ are. Just go! And leave me alone!”  
      Then he stalked away from the stand of trees proudly, and faltered only a little, as he returned to the road to continue his journey. He would _not_ think about it. He certainly would not let the unhappy shaking in his chest rise up into his eyes. He would not behave like a child. He would exercise the stern mettle that a man of thirteen years _should_ possess.  
      So he held his arms tightly as he walked, fixing his mind resolutely upon the lesson ahead. For almost a year now, he had learned swordplay amongst the knight-elects in de Cléville's employ; at first, he'd hated every moment. But Master de Trémoille was a patient and stern teacher. He didn't care for a youth's lineage, if the lad could learn to fight by whatever method suited him best. And if the young noblemen mostly ignored Robert, or occasionally made nasty quips as they stood awaiting their turns, at least _they_ left him alone otherwise.  
      Only when Robert thought about the other students did he recall his face, now itching with drying blood. He took a small kerchief from his sleeve and wiped away the stickiness as best he could. Then he tested the skin of his bruised eye and swelling cheek; nothing could be done for it now, though he wanted to crawl into a patch of tall grass and just disappear, and not face a group of high-born young men looking such a sight.  
      As the practice-yard came into his view, a familiar jittering feeling entered his stomach. There were ten youths in total, his age or older, most of them well-built and able to swing a broad blade, rather than learn the dance with slender sword and knife that Robert practiced. Now he could see them more clearly, as he approached, and for a few moments, he watched them. A few already moved in exercise, bare-chested, performing stretches to warm their muscles; the rest spoke amiably with each other, laughing easily. How he wished—  
      A fit of coughing interrupted his thoughts. He bent and spit away the metal-tasting phlegm that filled his mouth; he didn't notice that it was tinged with blood. The burning in his chest pained him. Miserably, he continued closing the distance to the gateway. He only needed to arrive, and then he perhaps could sit for a few moments before they began. He _must_ get there. Courage and strength, de Trémoille always taught them — and, Robert remembered with a hacking chuckle, guile, when courage and strength gave out. _An honourable man gets buried first_ , he'd told them.  
      Finally Robert reached the open wooden gates of the practice-yard, and he sighed with relief when the noble fellows glanced away from his ghastly appearance without comment. They probably thought he'd been brawling in the dirt like some wretched peasant. But it didn't matter so much now; he only wanted to get through this class and then—  
      “De Rainault,” his teacher acknowledged. Robert spied the armsmaster, standing in the near corner of the training field. His greying hair was tied back, and his sharp eye — for the other'd been blinded long ago — fixed on the youth as he crossed the yard. Robert nodded respectfully, then looked away as a loud cough seized his throat.  
      Robert didn't see what de Trémoille saw. He didn't know that his cheeks were reddened, that his streaked face was marked by heat and sweat. So he wondered why the Master looked concerned as he strode towards him. Surely he wouldn't be singled out before the practice even started? He worried and shook with a sudden chill.  
      Then Robert dropped to the ground like a stone, and when he opened his eyes, they shone hectically, unfocused and bright with sickness. Through his confusion, Robert heard de Trémoille mutter a string of words not quite fit for the ears of youths. A cloth started to swipe at his face; Robert tried to bat it away with an impatient hand.  
      Somewhere in his dim awareness, he felt he should be quite embarrassed by the ensuing upset. As if in a dream, his father came for him, lifting him bodily and riding back home with him. He was brought to his chambers; a maid came with an herbal poultice and, determined that his learning should prove useful, he murmured to her, “Bad air...from the earth...the windows...” Outside of the door, he could hear Héloïse talking to Hugo, her voice high and angry. He tried to ask what they were saying.  
      But he lapsed quietly into dreams then, mercifully oblivious to everything else.

      _Heavy clouds, glinting rain. Iron maille and tempered steel. Everything heavy and grey. He kneels to the sound of thunder and lifts a dart that is no mere weapon. Silver light explodes in his face and then illumines a paper, which bears a strange shape divided by a sharp line._  
      _Shining rain washes away the image; he runs away and into a sudden wind, so swift it knocks him back. He falls against a stone wall, his arms around a man of lightning flesh with inlaid jewels for eyes._  
      _He cries out, his gut twisting with some dark solitude he cannot name. He tries to hold on to those silver shoulders as a ship lists, rocking relentlessly, and how he hates it, the evil rhythm that twists his stomach in sickness, the ocean a flat churning grey that throws him down as though he were nothing._  
      _Then the earth beneath him stills and holds him, solid and sure. A voice speaks, echoing and rumbling through him with words he does not understand. A man-who-is-not-a-man towers over him in a pouring fog._  
      _The creature vanishes, and then it is Héloïse who stands over him, a silver cross glinting on her purple dress. The mist takes her image with it; he longs to weep; adamantine, he remembers, and remains silent. But his throat chokes; he tastes blood. Then everything is dark, and only burning remains..._

      He woke then and blinked confusedly; his shoulders shook. No, they were _being_ shaken. Good God, had his dreams actually the power to summon people to his side? “Héloïse?” Clumsily he touched her face. Her cheeks glinted wetly. “Why are you crying?”  
      Her arms encircled his neck. “I'm _not_ crying,” she insisted. But her voice was ragged. “I hate Hugo! I _hate_ him!”  
      Sweat came from his skin in tickling trails, as if he cooked inside his own body, and her words didn't make sense, even more so than usual. He was sick, then, sick enough to drive reason far from him. Robert put a hand on her head and touched loose hair. “You have to wear a veil,” he muttered miserably. Her uncovered tresses had caused countless arguments already; he didn't want to hear any more.  
      “I will when you and Édouard and Hugo do,” she retorted.  
      Hugo, that was it. “You're not supposed to hate Hugo,” he sighed, though he had little enough use for either of his brothers. He blinked until he could see more clearly, then looked to the open window; it was so late that only a thin moon shone in the sky for light, along with a candle that gleamed by his bedside. He reached an arm around Héloïse's shoulders and winced at the sudden sting; the incisions on his arm were fresh. He was _very_ ill, then. And that meant solitude and sage burning and everyone kept _out_. “How are you here?”  
      She looked at him stubbornly. “I told the servants I would come.” And that was that. None of them would risk a fit of hysterics from Héloïse de Rainault; she wasn't too proud to shriek until her bidding was done, and then the servants would be in it for having enraged her.  
      “You shouldn't be here.” But her eyes, the colour of the midsummer sky, were defiant, and he already saw an argument there which he lacked the strength to fight. “Do you remember?” he persisted. “What I told you...about sickness...miasma? You mustn't stay.”  
      Fearful understanding registered on her face. “But Hugo keeps praying....He says it is _la grippe_. That you might die!”  
      He’d heard the physic's words in his haze, the pronouncement of his slow recovery. But oh, he could almost hear those other words too, Hugo's sanctimonious pessimism scaring his twin, who'd seemed to despise him since she could speak. Hélô's first word had been _frère_ , and she'd looked at Robert, not Hugo, as she said it. No-one understood why the girl had seized onto the faerie-boy, or disliked her twin with nearly as much passion. Not even him.  
      “So you _can't_ ,” she continued. “I have _decided_. I came to tell you that.”  
      “If you've decided,” he allowed, “then I don't dare.” He pressed his sister's cool cheek to his too-warm one, and for a few moments, forgot to be quite so resolute. “Don’t worry anymore, Hélô,” he said softly. “Go.”  
      Héloïse nodded. She seemed about to speak, but instead, tugged the silver cross from her own throat and tied it round his neck, then smoothed the blanket back over his shoulders.  
      “Do you believe it, now?” he asked softly, surprised.  
      “Why not?” she answered practically. Slowly she pulled open the door, then shut it softly behind her.

      In the next few days, Robert woke himself with ceaseless coughing, a-fire with fever or trembling with cold, then fell back to sleep. The moon looked smaller each time he noted it. It was nearly May Eve, and the apple blossom scent at his window sweetly beckoned to him. But he could hardly move, and his chest hurt like the weight of being sat upon.  
      And then Robert no longer knew the time or day when, one evening, he woke; his father was calling him to wake, and it wasn't a dream, or was it? Hélias stood in the darkness, accompanied by a maid-servant who carried his light. They were hovering over him, and his father was saying words that didn’t seem to mean anything, and he did not protest his strange nightmare as his father lifted him in his arms like a child, as he was brought quickly to Héloïse's chamber and placed in a chair beside the bed.  
      There his sister lay, quiet for once and with her golden hair still not properly covered. Her chest rose and fell with rattling breaths. “Hélô?” Robert asked. But she didn't move. Her face was white, pale like the light of a waning moon.  
      Then Robert looked around and saw, to his anger, that there was no healer in sight, only a priest sitting on the other side of the bed and murmuring quietly in Latin. The others who stood there were all de Rainault: small Édouard with his moppy pale hair and babyish face. Hugo, wretched Hugo, whose face was pinched by an unexpected grief. Hélias, fair and dignified, but his face deeply-lined and suddenly old. Liliane, keeping cautious and pained vigil in the doorway, heavy with a child soon to be born.  
      And Robert, knowing that sickness came to everyone, that evil tidings were inevitable, trying to recall appropriate aphorisms. But he couldn’t remember the right words, as he stared. His sister was far too courageous, too strong to simply lie there. The stubborn girl followed him everywhere, and talked his ear off while he listened, and pushed an angry fist into his shoulder if his attention drifted — she didn't stay still for long, Robert knew. This deep sleeping was only a rest, a weary repose.  
      But he finished these thoughts, and in the next moment, she fell silent.  
      He sat in witness to this strange thing, quiet and deeply confused. He heard Liliane weeping and Hélias speaking to her in syllables that were meaningless sounds. He heard Hugo saying a prayer and Édouard asking useless questions and saw the priest stand and trace a cross and then just _leave_ and it was surely a dream, a dream only, the same one he'd always had without ever telling Hélô how it really ended.  
      _That you might die! That you might die…_  
      Hugo blinked at him from across the still bed.  
      Robert rose shakily to his feet. The little cross he still wore was light and small beneath his fingertips. _Why not?_  
      Only then, as if his very thoughts taunted him, did relevant words enter his bleary mind. _Your silver will go with you to destruction, because you thought that the gift of God is acquired by the possessions of the world._  
      _To destruction..._  
      _To destruction!_  
      _Adamant...free from emotion._  
      _You're not **supposed** to hate Hugo..._  
      He fumbled for the knife at his waist but realised that he wore only nightshirt and hose and no belt. A red haze came over his eyes, and it was the glare of distant fever and dust kicked into his eyes and memories now made useless—  
      _Adamant..._  
      _I hate him!_  
      He lunged at Hugo's obscene stare and pushed it back from him with all of his wasted strength. His fists went swinging wildly; the brother struck by those blows could barely fight back, and then their father pulled him away—  
      Robert shouted protest, tried to free himself. But his arms sagged and his legs buckled and the room — thank God — _except there was no God_ — went dark.

      _Relapse_ , he heard through his daze.  
      He mustn't be blamed. He'd been ill. The shock was too great. He was lucky to be alive, how fortunate. How _blessed_ that nearly all of their children had survived. Only the infant, another girl, six weeks too soon and too sick to live. And Héloïse. _Only_ two children, three healthy young ones remaining. How _fortunate_.  
      But Robert did not ennumerate his blessings as he lay a-bed, too stunned to speak, too weak to rise and slap the ignorant imbeciles who dared speak such words.  
      When they buried her, his old nurse came into their home, though she'd long since moved on, and stayed behind with him, risked his sickroom to silently pray at his side. Robert watched her devotions and touched the cross at his throat. But, instead of reverence, what rose within him was disgust, the dust of all of the laws which stood mocked and violate. For _her_ sake, he tried to pray the simplest prayer he’d ever learned — _why not?_ — but rage welled up from his heart and twisted the verse into a completely different form; well, if his prayer was not particularly pious, at least it was sincere. So he didn't bother to fight what was surely heinous blasphemy, only let the accusations come, the thoughts he had not yet dared to utter.

      _Our Father. Who languishes in Heaven while we anguish here below. I will not make holy Your name. I will not prepare Your kingdom, for this foul Hell is Your creation. I shall not do Your will; by Your verdict are the Laws of youth and life desecrate on Earth, while You thrive in Heaven._  
      _I would sooner bow to the grain, which rises and falls in its proper season, than thank You, who kills without Justice, for my daily bread._  
      _You possess no authority to forgive me; I shall forgive You when You confess Your transgressions unto me and beg grace from my anger. Until then, O Hypocrite, deny me no temptation, nor dare deliver me unto greater grief._

      He recalled reproachful words from the holy text, intended to rebuke the sinner; savagely he directed the insult skyward. _Your silver is become dross, your wine mixed with water_.  
      He nearly ended his unvoiced tirade with _amen_ , but what would be the point? He already knew that _so it was_.

      It was weeks before he had the strength or even the will to rise; the summer air drifting through his window seemed to insult him, as though reproaching grief with verdant life. But eventually the day came when he could no longer stay in his bed, could no longer stand to look at his walls, couldn't ignore his curiosity about the conversations outside of his room. So he rose, and on that first day he could only walk from his chamber to the hallway and then back again, before his shaking knees planted him back onto his mattress. The next, he stumbled all the way to the kitchen, where the cook spied him, gave him a seat and a fresh roll. He ate the bread slowly, in tiny pieces, and nothing so simple had ever tasted so fine. Then he returned to his room. Soon he managed to reach the porch, long enough to sit in the fresh air, and then began to take brief, unsteady strolls around the gardens.  
      In this way Robert de Rainault slowly came back to life, though it was not the same life he had left. The meals he shared with his family were less convivial, more quiet. He hardly gave Hugo the dignity of recognition, and he didn't have to; the boy began hurrying to the chapel after school, no doubt praying, Robert noted with biting bitterness, to the same “good Father” who'd allowed their sister's demise. He still walked to the library with his father, when he was able to make the journey, but their steps were heavier, their converse more infrequent. Finally Robert returned to his classes and his arms-lessons, neither protesting the former nor issuing defiant challenges at the latter. He simply performed as ordered, like the trained dog he'd been named.  
      One day, perhaps five months _after_ , a movement at the practice-yard gates caught de Rainault's eye. Listlessly he identified the dark-clad man as de Cléville, then turned his full attention back to the Master, for the instructor would not spare de Rainault for his distraction; in these many weeks, Robert had come to appreciate the harsh practice-field, where sorrows were shoved aside by the urgency of action. When he used the sword, he couldn't think about anything, only react.  
      And react he must, as de Trémoille came at him fiercely; Robert readied a parry, but then a diabolical idea sprang into his mind. He sidestepped, outside of the bounds he _should_ have respected, and when the surprised teacher staggered into the empty space, Robert pulled back his duelling-sword and put his dagger to the Master's neck.  
      De Trémoille stood with a grunt. “You know better than that, boy! To break the _piste_ in a duel—”  
      Robert felt an odd freedom like falling as he replied, “There’s no strip in a battle, my lord. That sort of honour is hazardous to the health.”  
      Two of the young men, squires of sixteen years each and easily the most exquisite fighters among them, stopped in their girding-on of armour to gawk. And Robert noted their startled reactions with pleasure, as de Trémoille looked at him and then _laughed_.  
      “True enough, boy,” the Master answered. “Well, and it's not likely you'll be fighting any duels, will you? We'll have to teach you—”  
      “De Trémoille!” came a shout from the gate.  
      The teacher and his pupils all turned to look.  
      “Send him to me when his lesson’s complete,” de Cléville instructed.  
      “He's nearly through, my lord,” de Trémoille replied. “Soon.”  
      The noble lord's thinning hair shone like a bright coin in the sunlight, as he nodded curtly and turned away from the gate.  
      Robert went _en garde_ , preparing himself for another match. But instead of matching his gesture and calling out a brusque _allez_ , de Trémoille waved the youth aside and racked the sword and dagger he held. Then he held out his hands for Robert's weapons; disappointed, Robert gave them over, and the Master easily found their place on the rack.  
      “Best go now,” de Trémoille instructed.  
      Robert nodded. He had never known the nobleman to observe their weapons-work before. Months ago, he would have felt fear, would have worried about his mischievous instinct and the lord's witnessing of it; now, it seemed of little importance.  
      He brushed the dust from his clothes as he walked and then entered the home, made familiar and even comfortable to him by his years of study there. His boots went into their place beside the entrance, and then a young maidservant — who blushed, for some fool girl reason — showed him into the drawing-room. De Cléville stood there, as expected, and his father too, and they looked over a pile of pages and spoke intensely, obviously deep into their daily labours.  
      The maid lingered next to Robert uncertainly; finally, he cleared his throat, and the girl skittered away as the two men looked up. At Cléville's nod, Robert entered the room and stopped at a respectful distance. Hélias took Robert's hands in a gesture of welcome, then loosed them and stood at his side, and both folded their hands before them in gestures of patience, awaiting the nobleman's command.  
      Robert looked at the Visconte de Cléville, his unexpected benefactor of nearly seven years, and he became uneasy as he noted the man's intense stare. Though a few silver hairs broke the illusion of red-gold fire ringing de Cléville's head, he looked no less fierce; his face had a parsimonious mouth, beneath rounded cheeks and eyes of a strange muddy colour, a broad forehead and a tapering chin. He wasn't a handsome man, and there was something about his aspect that hinted of assessment at every moment. Holding his chin high, he gazed down at Robert, while the two de Rainaults wondered. Finally, the Visconte nodded.  
      “Well,” he began. “De Rainault, you know I've come into more property in Ledecestre. The holding's enough now to merit its own residence.”  
      Robert listened, bored already, wondering what this had to do with him.  
      “I mean to inspect the terrain and determine the best site for construction. Supervise the foundations, at least. And drive off any savages who still linger on my lands,” de Cléville mused, with a hard smile. “You'll administer the manor in my absence.”  
      “Yes, my lord,” Hélias answered.  
      Robert frowned. His father was widely known as honest and competent. Why should Robert be called in, to witness his father's agreement to govern Cléville during some simple sojourn? Wherever “Ledecestre” happened to be.  
      “Now, young man,” de Cléville said, and Robert gave his attention back to the nobleman. “You'll accompany me on the journey. I need a valet I can trust not to steal my possessions from under me. Anyhow, you'll need to serve at some point, and the Earl of Darby needs men. I'll pay your passage, and sponsor your service, see that you're fitted out properly. You'll finish your term — something _simple_ — then apprentice on my new estate. Do well there, and I'll keep you on as seneschal.” He stood back and folded his arms, awaiting a pleased reaction from the youth, who was essentially being given the same posting that his father had laboured for years to obtain.  
      But Robert looked at his father, and though he could only see the shock in a tightness around his father's eyes — the rest of his face carefully schooled to betray nothing — he realised that the unscrupulous noble had mentioned nothing of this to Hélias. Robert had no idea where in hell Ledecestre was, but _Darby_ , that name he knew. It was across the Sea, in _Angleterre_ — the Land of Hastings, where Saxon stragglers still brewed trouble at every opportunity. It was whispered that ghosts flew on the night winds and that nothing could grow there when witches determined to spoil the harvests. This had to be some ill-considered jest! Or had de Cléville really been training him all this time to take up residence on that cursed earth, so far away?  
      His anger was sudden and acute; how dare this odious man close such a trap upon him? To offer him learning and training, only to indebt him to a future in a faraway land?  
      He couldn't go. He didn't want to go. There had to be a way out.  
      “You look surprised,” de Cléville wheedled. “Well, of course, that's to be expected. Have you some objection? You must have realised you were being trained for _something_ , surely?”  
      “I...” Robert stammered, and looked down at his hands; they were marked from handling weapons, and suddenly he saw a chance, however small. “I had hoped to serve you in honour as a knight, my lord,” he offered. “To...to remain at the manor, perhaps, or...or with the Earl of Kaem.”  
      De Cléville's eyes became merry; he snickered at the youth's unbelievable ambition. “You, such as you are — a knight?!” His chuckles turned to outright laughter. Finally he quieted down, as the mirth evoked by Robert's unexpected joke faded. “But of course it's impossible. Excepting your size, you don't have the birth. There's nothing I can do to change that.”  
      “Then why train me with the others, my lord?” Robert blurted out.  
      “So's you don't get yourself _killed_ , boy!” de Cléville replied. “Oh, I'm sure you've shown him what you know, Hélias. And they taught him in that school, of course.” His tone could not have been more disdainful if suggesting that Robert had been trained by a pack of wolves. Then he turned his attention back to the youth, superiorly declaiming anew. “But the Saxon people are ruthless. No honour, that lot. Even light duty in the Angles' land is a hardship. And de Trémoille's a good teacher against that kind of thing.” He eyed Robert with interest. “It's a pity you weren't born noble, de Rainault; you've the spirit for it. It's unfortunate, but we're all God's creatures. He places us where He will. And you're for England, boy.”  
      Robert hesitated for several moments, then spoke carefully. “As you say, my lord, God places us where He will. And no amount of _will_ may overcome the situation of birth, nor the need for good breeding.” He bowed then, as if in deference, and ignored the stricken face of his father as he looked down.  
      Then his eyes settled upon a lone vellum scrap, thrown aside from the stack that the two men had been examining. Forgetting that the page was not his, forgetting even to ask, he seized it up, forgetting to be respectful as he cried out. “This...what _is_ this?!”  
      “That?” de Cléville asked indifferently. Then he scrutinised the page. “Ah. _Angleterre_ marked by the Fosse Way, the old Roman road. See there? Ledecestre is there, right along its path.”  
      _...a strange shape divided by a sharp line..._  
      Robert stared incredulously at the map, and he barely heard de Cléville's continuing prattle. “A convenient route, a bit run-down of course, but still quite serviceable—“  
      “My lord!” Hélias intruded suddenly. Both Robert and the Visconte looked at him, startled. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but it seems Robert has preparations to make; we should be on our way. I believe you depart soon?”  
      The Visconte broke his road-induced reverie and nodded. “Two days, de Rainault. See that he's ready.”  
      “Yes, my lord,” they both answered.  
      They left the room, clad their feet at the doorway, and then emerged onto the path, their ambling made awkward by Hélias' anguish and Robert's anger. Only when they reached a safe distance from the manor did Hélias speak.  
      “Robert,” he offered hesitantly. “I didn't know—”  
      “I know, Père,” came Robert’s curt reply.  
      “I don't know if he can be talked out of it. But I may be able to get you time, if you wish it. You were sick such a short time ago—“  
      Again Robert cut off his father, halting all thoughts of his illness and the misery that had followed; he didn't want to lead his mind down those same weary, loathsome tracks. Anyhow, that map showed the shape he’d seen in his dream; he was certain of it, and equally certain — with the inner kenning he'd possessed since it all started — that there was no avoiding the trip, or even delaying it. In two days' time, he would stand with de Cléville in the port of Kaem, and board some great vessel for a trip he'd never thought to take.  
      “No. I will go,” Robert affirmed. But he glanced around them and, assured that they walked alone, without others on the path to witness, Robert turned and spat spitefully towards the estate.  
      “Robert!” Hélias exclaimed, his surprise stopping them both in the road.  
      “I'll go, Père,” he repeated, meeting his father's slate blue eyes determinedly. “But he's a pompous fool with porridge for brains!”  
      “He is a nobleman and your patron,” Hélias corrected.  
      “And he'll never let me forget his vaunted _birth_ , I'm certain,” Robert cried. “What a shame I lack the same inter-breeding that produced such a prize! That man would fornicate with his own mother if the pay sufficed.”  
      Hélias turned away from the youth in admonishment. But then, two realisations came to him, and he didn't know which touched him more. He understood what Robert had _really_ been saying to de Cléville, in the words he'd taken for distressing capitulation. And as he looked back to his son, he realised that, though Robert's step was still narrower than his, and likely always would be, his child had somehow become a young man without his notice.  
      To Robert he said none of this, only gave a simple instruction. “Come now, Robert. We must return.”  
      Robert turned his face back to the road and obeyed, almost flouncing with resentment as he walked.  
      “You must be careful not to say such things, in _Angleterre_ ,” Hélias rebuked gently. “A fighting man could be flogged for such words.” Then a rare mischief came into Hélias' features. “Besides, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead.”  
      Robert looked up at his father, confused by the apparent _non sequitur_.  
      “Cléville's mother died three years ago,” Hélias clarified. Then he tilted his head in apparent thought. “Though he does have an elder sister…” And an impish smile crossed his lips; Hélias was not often given to such recklessness, but that day, it was a small gift to his son. The seneschal had once been told that memories were pieces of silver to count when days of gold had passed, and it was treasure that rained through his thoughts as he steadily walked — though he looked straight ahead, as not to encourage further irreverent remarks.  
      But the day was not yet done with surprises, for Robert's hand found his father's and held it firmly as they journeyed, such as Robert had not done for years. So neither spoke again, needing no further words, as they returned from the manor house for the last time.  
      Finally, they reached the cottage and parted ways at its entrance. Hélias went to find Liliane and the children, while Robert lingered behind him; for a few moments, the young man simply looked, filling his eyes with familiar hues and shapes. Then he shook his head impatiently and, moving through the home like a sudden squall, he motioned the servants to follow him and begin preparing his possessions, ahead of what he already knew would be a long and difficult journey across a stormy sea.


	4. Corundum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter are implied and actual atrocities, sexual assault, character death, murder, and violence. The setting is Derbyshire, the year 1179.

"He passed the flaming bounds of space and time:  
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,  
Where angels tremble while they gaze,  
He saw; but blasted with excess of light,  
Closed his eyes in endless night."  
—Thomas Gray

"Ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity."  
—Aldous Huxley

      The shadow between his eyes deepened as he passed a stiff sinew through a needle of bone. He already knew the effort to be futile, but there was little else to do, as rain fell upon the tattered cloth stretched over him. Robert de Rainault had little idea how fared the rebellion which their presence ostensibly deterred, but of one thing he was certain: the treacherous weather had firmly allied with the Saxons, working tirelessly to rust away any Norman soldier it couldn't drown outright.  
      The unpredictable Midlands rain had made itself a torturous nuisance to him and his encamped men, these last several weeks. It buffeted their tents and dribbled onto their heads. Night and day, it tapped against shields and tattooed against tent-stakes and seeped around shelters, waking the occasional exhausted soldier in a shock of freezing wet. It kept the men soaked and miserable and, as Robert had discovered, any man with leaking boots would have pickled feet by sundown and wake to peeling grey calluses at first light. The sun emerged only to plump the grass ahead of the next barrage of storms, its light a taunt to the men and no boon.  
      He'd read about the deprivations of the fighting soldier. He knew to expect poor food, given irregularly if at all, and to anticipate stomach-twisting revulsion from the "nourishment." He'd prepared himself for that, insofar as knowledge could. And he'd endured the actual fighting: the first snap of the crossbow, the bolt's impact like a fever-dream, as it tore through flesh and dropped a corpse into the dirt where a man had stood, he'd forced himself to watch and hold his ground. He'd remained steady even afterwards, when some of the others had been noisomely sick, kneeling in the bloody grime and heaving up what little they'd eaten that morning.  
      What he hadn't anticipated were the petty rivalries of his men, more tenacious than even the rain. Each evening at meat — or what passed for it — Robert brooded over the sorts of furious excesses that grew amidst provoked fighters who lacked purpose: makeshift gambling and furtive thieving, fisticuffs and bullying, stupid gossip, and that wasn't counting the saucier stories whose snippets he heard on the rare evenings of opened wineskins, accounts of ravished virgins and even muffled grapples amongst the men. The endless complaints, this idiotic game and that ridiculous wager, fights over trifles — he'd actually encountered a scuffle over a pair of fine carved dice, and had ended the conflict by taking them for himself — oh, how he laughed and groaned about it all. They drilled in the rain and shared wide oiled cloaks as tarps, between spates of action, and the bedraggled tents struggled gamely to hold shape, while each day the nervous energy pitched a little higher, with no release. Six weeks they'd been without orders.  
      This wasn't a Saxon rebellion; it was a slow rot.  
      It wasn't only the maille rusting and their vigilant position sinking further into the English mud that frustrated Robert. It was the last year of realising, and then no longer caring, that his own mind grew slower and increasingly stupid. How his thoughts dwindled, abandoning time and wisdom and fate for the simple concerns of an ox: breakfast and bedding and boots, and how _did_ the shoes admit water to his feet and _then_ become watertight enough to trap it there? It was the way his hopes quieted to listless silence; almost four years earlier, Robert had journeyed to England by ship, as he'd seen in a dream, an actual _vision_ ; how could he not have expected some extraordinary fate to follow? True, the half-expected reception with roses and reveille hadn't manifested, but he'd still imagined that he'd advance far beyond the fools who bore arms for the Earl. Only a few years later, after he'd struggled through his first skirmish, did he understand that a man with brains was just as soft in the viscera as the man without, and that a crossbow could fire much faster than thought. He hadn't realised that he'd need those idiots to protect him, and later, to keep him in charge — for Robert had seen enough fights to harbour no further illusions; many of "his" men were larger and stronger than he and, should their ire rouse and focus upon him, his brilliance would become just another bloodsmear in the straw. Thus had his ambitious dreaming had faded into the dim, unadorned thoughts of the barnyard beast: when even the rumblings of rebellion had finally been ground into the dirt, he'd be warm. He'd touch warm skin instead of dusty drying earth beneath his tunic, and admire good flesh when he held out his arms, not wasted strength and shadow of bone. He'd go home — he'd never thought of Normandy as home, until he had no other — and there, he'd look upon wide blue sky, not just its rare glimpses through clouds, and see more of his own people than ink smudges on carelessly creased pages.  
      Until then, this lunacy continued, this slow decay among them, to which he'd become too accustomed to offer any real resistance. In one tiny town, they'd killed men, but taken a few prisoner as well. In the next assault, they'd killed all of the men, but at least had let the women be. The next, Robert heard shrill female screams following the fight, and reasoned that, so long as the girls were let live, they'd survive the experience. He'd tried it himself, once; he'd grabbed a captive woman and pulled her into one of the hovels that passed for local homes. Then he'd seen the straw and the dirt and her big cow eyes, and the wretched sight had made him angry, not lustful. So he'd pretended the intent of questioning, and after tossing off a few glib queries that any cow could have answered, sent her away. That night, he'd taken one of the camp followers instead, hoping her less filthy than the Saxon huts, determined to get it over with. But the relief he'd poured into her felt little different from filling his belly or falling to sleep, a kindness to his flesh and nothing more. So he kept away from the soldiers' post-battle "celebrations" — save those involving pillage and ale — and punished only those who overstepped their lawful bounds, including the women who dared grab for weapons against the soldiers; even in this madness, this country and its people still belonged to their conquerors.  
      It was a servitude they well deserved; he knew that now. In the beginning he'd known the Saxon race only by rumour, as a strange and superstitious bunch who clung to savage customs, and he'd never even seen a Saxon until undertaking the “simple” service arranged between his patron and the Earl: guard-duty in the Earl's dungeons, where the rebellion's allies were brought and questioned before their extradition to higher authorities. After a few weeks, he'd learned to stand alert over the long hours, while striving to steadfastly ignore the imprisoned traitors; they'd utter nothing save lies anyhow, his superior explained. It had been mind-deadeningly simple, his worst complaints the dullness and the dank darkness — until he'd witnessed his first interrogation and wished that the darkness might blind him. For the deeds he'd glimpsed through those bars had rooted his feet where he stood, left him voiceless and quivering. His fellow-guards had seemed skin-clad devils to him then, their cheerful banter unimaginably vile, and that night he'd held his cloak balled tightly beneath his face, and screamed as wave after wave of remembered ripping and pleading and searing took him, and he'd begged the God he hated to change flagstones into keel, earth into sea, to carry him home and away from those flesh-twisting demons, who'd somehow fooled him into believing them men.  
      That had been the first night, a hysterical gethsemane he now recalled with a flush of embarrassment. In the grey dawn-light, he had pulled himself back to his senses, reminded himself sternly that he must withstand his service, even excel in it; he could never slink home in disgrace, weak from womanly weeping! For his own sake, he must somehow rise above it all, the same way he let the prisoners' words wash over him unheard. But after enduring several more such sessions, he'd realised that whatever he might think of such methods, they were irrefutably _effective_. Without exception, the captives underwent their abominable ordeals, lying and lying again, until they were convinced at last to reveal what they knew. Then the procedures had started to interest him — not their performance, for he never cinched the thumbscrews or heated the irons himself, but their results: the revelation of these Saxons as liars, and _cowards_ , who would betray their fellows and even abandon their own oaths if poked and prodded enough. In time he came to understand the grim necessity of those implements, the carefully designed and rigorously tested procedures that wrung truth from reluctant lips, transmuting fleshly agonies into justice.  
      Not long after, a prisoner had broken during the night watch; to the dark-eyed youth at his door, he'd confessed his secrets intermingled with delirious prayers, before expiring where he sat. That same night, Robert's recognised value had appreciated sharply, as his superior had hastily pulled him away from the dead man's door to make report to the scribes. And he'd risen still further in esteem after the bleary-eyed scribe — roused from his bed so early that his shaking hands had nearly ripped the page — had proven so slow that Robert had shoved the man aside and written the account himself. After that, they'd used him: a balm to the bleeding captive, a daring sympathetic “friend” to offer a moment of kindness; _just tell them the truth_ , he'd whisper, pleading softly as though he feared detection by “them.” Once, he'd even whispered that he could carry a message to an associate and, having scratched the requested words onto a scrap of starched rag, he'd delivered the letter — complete with name and residence of the intended recipient — to his commander, smirking at his own clever guile; he'd never clarified _whose_ associate would receive the note.  
      His intelligence was esteemed by the clods around him, but all too soon, earning such praise became too simple; the dungeon remained wretched, and the Saxons were still liars, and their screams still woke him. With six months still remaining to his term, he'd begged for transfer, preferring anything save the childishly easy exertions entrusted him and the plodding drudgery awaiting him after, and asking to serve in the field of war where he'd not have time to stand idle and think, where he might stop the Saxons' betrayals at their source. But in high-sounding words like "conquest," in all he'd ever read of battle and honour, he'd never imagined the fighter's battlefield to so closely resemble the prisoner's jail: brief bursts of blood-pumping terror and panicked violence, and then the brief satiety of praise and congratulations and indulgence, before returning to the degenerating wait and want of daily routine.  
      He tried to think well of it all, but to his mind, the entire English affair was chaos, his “simple” term of service anything but, and he could have struck the Visconte for instigating his misery; de Cléville had long since departed for Normandy, bidding farewell to Robert after offering pompous prayers in Saint Wystan’s chapel for his protection. And Robert was none too happy with his father for tolerating the Visconte's stupidity, either. Hélias de Rainault had fought in the Lesser Crusade, he _knew_ what it was like; he _should_ have dragged his son home from Kaem port by the scruff! But thanks to others' foolishness, Robert had spent too many months already in Angleterre, nearly half that time a-field, and his career had now come full circle: after moving skirmishes and patrols, stationing themselves in town after wretched town, his men had returned to Darbyshire, now cut off from their unit and awaiting further orders from the Earl's indifferent lassitude. Saint Wystan's lay a scant ten miles hence, except now the entire region swarmed with rebels — who cared for no "diplomacy" short of a mutual agreement that Hastings had never happened — and no Norman would linger in that church to pray for any purpose, save his own swift demise.  
      And as appealing as that prayer sometimes seemed, Robert had only seventeen years; in the end, he'd rather skirmish through ankle-deep mud in the morning than become one of the bodies lying atop it by evening-fall. When it hurt every bone in his body to wake and move, to lift his crossbow and bear maille upon his bowstring-tight shoulders — when he saw a corpse and his stomach twisted (still!), or the sight of sightless blue eyes brought nightmares to rack his sleep — then he turned his thoughts, once so sharp, to something simple, and stupid, and small. Like a boot sole, its decaying leather overlaid with layers of woven sinew, sewn up again and again. Again plus one, as he worked.  
      Until his shoulder lurched forward, and the bone tip stabbed him in the finger. He cursed, and sucked at the welling puncture, and glared up at his second-in-command, Edgar, whose sanguine disposition was annoying enough for Robert to consider driving the needle into his eye; knowing Edgar, he'd probably still smile like an idiot.  
      "Gloom, Robert!" he exclaimed, having smacked him on the shoulder with his usual rejoinder. "Don't they say there's silver outlining every cloud?"  
      "I think 'they' are mindless fools," de Rainault snapped. "But if you insist: how _magnificent_ it is to freeze and soak in the glorious Land of Hastings. Do bury me where I drown, in this beloved terrain. 'Here lieth Robert de Rainault, devoured by the English skies. He died as he lived: wet, cold, and irritated.'”  
      "There's the spirit," Edgar replied wryly. "An inspiration to all heroes who bear weapons for Norman honour. Why, if our kinfolk across the Sea could see us now—"  
      "They'd ask these drowned vermin where their sons had gone." Robert held up the boot, saw a gap still remaining, and set back to work with a suggestion. "Perhaps if we scraped the mud from our bodies and placed it into a heap, we could claim another mile of vanquished Saxon land for the King."  
      He'd never speak so to his other men. But Edgar had fought with him for months now; Robert knew he wouldn't go running back to anyone with tattled tales. And, for all that the imbecilic smiles were irksome, the man's green eyes were a welcome shock of colour in a landscape of endless grey.  
      "It's sunset soon," Edgar reminded him uselessly.  
      "There's a sun?"  
      "Aye, somewhere," came the assent. Then Edgar held out an offering hand; Robert accepted with a quick nod, rising from the floor and then stretching an arm behind his back to worry at the lacing there. He didn't know why he bothered to don the uncomfortable dress each day that they remained there. Warmth, perhaps, and preparedness as well — he'd seen enough lax men surprised by sudden orders. Paranoia, Edgar would say; Robert ignored the familiar quabble in his memory, then took a quick breath as his impatient second pushed his hand away and began untying the bindings there himself. To be sure, it was sheer pleasure to be relieved of the smelly burden; Robert bent forward, dropping his head to stare at the earth between his feet until the other man had finished his work. The heavy leather tunic sagged from his torso to his thighs, and he grasped it quickly.  
      Then Edgar stepped to the entrance, but Robert didn't look up. "Go on. I'll follow."  
      He could hear cheerful converse outside of the tent and thanked — well, not God, certainly, but any watchful spirit, that he'd been alone with his work. Few men dared to share a tent space with their superior, or any space really, when he was in an ill humour, and so none had witnessed his body's reaction to its divestiture. He heard Edgar jesting with two of the other soldiers, whose voices he recognised, whose fine appearances he also recalled; he felt then a stab of possessive anger, which calmed his coiling gut quite effectively. Without bothering to wonder about it — he had neither the time nor the inclination — he donned his boots, then staggered to the entrance awkwardly, pressing feeling back into his tingling legs and feet. And he was miserably unsurprised when he stepped out of the tent flap, right into a puddle of mud, which sent a fresh surge of muddy water oozing between his toes.  
      Dry warmth. It was such a small thing to desire.  
      Robert nearly thought of the dungeons with longing, remembering almost with fondness that mildewed shelter, with guttural Saxon words rasping through its chambers at all hours; he'd learned the language there, night after night of listening to the men argue and bluster and even pray through their captivity. The Pagan ones — nearly all, whatever Christ they'd pretended to follow — had spoken of the Hunter, who was _Herne_ to them, just as He'd been to the superstitious idiots back home. They talked about hooded guardian spirits, and a hooded man who held some sort of importance; his Saxon hadn't yet been polished enough to grasp the nuances. But as he scanned the dreary horizon, he at last understood why those English Pagans worshipped _cloaked_ gods. And he hoped they had sense enough to offer threats with their prayers, to unhood those gods' images and make _them_ stand forlornly in the rain until the sun returned. As for himself, perhaps he'd been a fool after all, to scorn the easy work and warmth of the Earl's estates, which now lay over thirty miles distant from this place; Robert could almost envision the Earl lazing in lavish comfort, discussing the soldiers' positions over wine before nestling into some vast cushion even greater than his own bed back home had been.  
      Now, when Robert bedded down for the night, it was in a six-man tent stretched to hold twelve; more bodies meant more heat, and it was at least better than the stinging insects that nestled in the straw-ticks of Saxon villagers' homes. There was little enough relief to be had in sleep, in any case, save for the rare, unpredictable dream of Normandy. Not of the cottage at Cléville, nor the arms of his family, which left him shadowed and hollow-feeling when he woke. Not _that_ dream, the one that still came without alteration. And not the nightmares, of a grey stone with engraved Latin upon its face, nor of young men lying in their gore. But a gentler dream, the one of wide blue skies and relentlessly hot sunlight, from which he woke warmed and even perspiring from imagined heat. It soothed him; even when that dreaming had signaled an attack of typhus — which had ravaged their makeshift barracks for weeks — he'd still felt _pleased_ , to awaken senseless and sweating and _finally_ warm.  
      But this night, too, there was an unexpected reprieve from the cold; he slept for only a few hours before awakening rather too comfortable. Taking stock of his body and his surroundings, he realised there was a torso pressed to his side, and a leg placed lightly over his. It was some soldier surely dreaming of a wife back home, and yet he couldn't bring himself to shake the man off, to mortify them both and remove an unexpected source of heat besides. He'd let the man discover his own mistake and pull away, believing his _faux pas_ undiscovered.  
      A grown man _should_ crave a wife, he reminded himself, not yearn for the same caresses that passed sometimes between curious boys. It maddened Robert to silence such infuriating, immature longings each time one of the lean fighters — some of whom had his age or little more — touched him. He remembered certain passages from his studies very well indeed, the Latin words he'd devoured with wide eyes, while the teacher glossed over the subject matter with delicate scorn. But this English swamp bore nothing of the Sparta of old, and there were no scrolls here to bear him to another time and place upon a sea of ink. He could only despise his own lust, and hate the men even more when they rutted with their prizes at will, indulging desires that seemed to mock his with every moan. Without even knowing who lay against him in the night, Robert remained awake, the flutter of his heart keeping him roused and insatiate.  
      Finally, the erstwhile soldier turned again in his sleep, and Robert again drifted off, shivering, waking later with arms so cold the flesh had gone numb. In frustration he threw himself onto his side, lying on his right shoulder and rubbing feeling into the left. He glanced briefly around; it was a two-thirds moon — it took him longer than it should have to recall the word _gibbous_ — and through the light filling worn spots in the tent's awning, he could see the sleeping soldiers, limp and careless. For a moment his chest squeezed out his breath. But he stared and at last faintly discerned the rise and fall of shoulders and torsos, groggily reassuring himself that this was not another battlefield lying around him in some waking dream. Quietly, he fell back to sleep, saying nothing, and when he again knew himself, it was a dark overcast morning, and night had passed away.  
      So passed the dark weeks of rain and stagnant waiting, and the enforced inactivity made Robert restless and defiant; an _extraordinary_ man, he thought angrily, wouldn't have taken half so long to find some useful occupation. Finally, one September morning he called for the scout, Wulf. The lad was a Saxon they’d captured at Stone, who seemed content to support the Norman cause if supported in turn with coin. And to be sure, it was amusing to hand the boy silver that he'd appropriated _from_ the Saxons, before ordering the youth to travel swiftly through the day-long, returning at sundown with anything he'd observed. Then he commanded that drills be ended for the day, and that the men pull together all of the logs and rocks they could find. By the end of Robert's minor, not entirely wise rebellion, they sat merry and slightly drunk, warming themselves and their clothing at modest fires.  
      Across the circle of laughing, bedraggled men, he could see a few of them quietly lifting a vessel and speaking, before drinking of it. Robert nudged Edgar and thrust forward his sharp chin to indicate the odd scene. “What are they doing?”  
      Edgar observed, listening as one spilled a few drops to the ground. “Offering. To the Hunter.”  
      Robert stared in surprise. The man who held the cup was a grizzled fighter named Hubert, who looked years older than the two decades he actually had, and was known for telling dirty jokes, not leading daily devotions. “Why?”  
      Edgar laughed. “What do you mean, _why?_ ”  
      Robert snorted. “What _god_ needs our poor wine?”  
      “It's the idea. Giving, to get. Like a sacrifice.”  
      Robert sighed; not being an idiot, he'd already grasped the principle, and had probably read more on offering and libation than every man here combined. He flicked his gaze up to his second. “Everyone has a price. Even a god?”  
      “Not like th―” But Edgar trailed off, for he'd put out a hand to cuff Robert's shoulder in friendly rebuke; Robert, emboldened by wine, had caught the fist in his palm and held it there.  
      Edgar dropped his hand in defeat and looked away, flushing. His profile wavered in the firelight, and Robert drank in the sight until Edgar again spoke, with a seriousness he usually avoided. “Maybe they ask protection.”  
      The cup still passed from man to man. “Against the vicious Saxon hordes?”  
      “Against the season's turning. Tomorrow.”  
      When Robert said nothing, Edgar continued. “People say...Herne rides over the land. Herne and his awful Hunt. The Folk. Anyone out after dark, they're maddened by the sight. If they survive.”  
      Robert laughed aloud, for if such were true, every man present would have died several times over. Edgar's look was sharp, and he glanced back in surprise; he knew well how men could cling to stupid tales from their youths, but he'd thought Edgar beyond such tomfoolery. Still, he relished the green fire shining at him, wanted to set it blazing. “You believe that rubbish? Children's stories mixed in with mother's-milk? My mother used to jest about her changeling son whenever I _annoyed_ her.” He laughed, shaking his head in dismissal, and accepted the cup from Guillaume at his right. “If the Folk ever existed, they'd have drowned by now. Or fallen at Senlac, with their vanquished friends.” Nonetheless, his good mood moved him to humour the others, muttering _Herne protect us_ , before drinking of the sour wine and holding out the cup to his fellow in both hands, willing his friend to touch his hand in the taking of it.  
      Edgar took the cup somberly, the brush of his fingers like lightning. “Herne protect us,” he repeated, then let a few drops trickle over his fingertips and fall to the ground. Then he passed the cup along, keeping his back to the companion at his left. “Robert.”  
      He'd never before used his superior's Christian name, nor had he asked permission for the familiarity; something in de Rainault's stomach wrenched at the whisper of his own name.  
      “What I'm trying...that is...tomorrow―”  
      _Just tell me the truth,_ he silently commanded, and desire brought his whole flesh to keen attention while he willed his friend to speak with intimacy, to utter words of regard—  
      “ _My lord!_ ”  
      Their heads snapped to the direction of the call. Wulf had returned; the youth’s dirt-brown clothing and swarthy features seemed darker still in the grey afternoon, as he ran wildly towards them. Robert swore under his breath as the child slid to his knees, trying to clear sodden ground too quickly. He ran out to meet him; Edgar and a few of the men followed.  
      “What did you see?” Edgar demanded.  
      Wulf gasped something incomprehensible. His face streamed with sweat. Finally he spoke again. “River's high, m'lord. Maybe in spate soon―”  
      “Where?” interrupted Robert.  
      “Just by Repton,” Wulf answered, recovering his breath. “The vigil―”  
      “Vigil?” Robert snapped impatiently.  
      “Some o'the village...they go...to the Abbey....keep vigil there. Each year. Michaelmas.” Finally, the boy gasped out his exhaustion and was able to breathe. “But I seen 'em, they're goin' too early, m'lord. Abbey's on the highest hill.” He described what he'd seen: townsfolk – all male, by the look, though he couldn't be sure in the murky distance – who'd gone throughout the day to Repton Abbey. Perhaps they intended to wait out the threat of a flooding river – or even the Hunt's danger – amidst the monks and their hymns.  
      Or perhaps they intended something altogether different.  
      Robert’s mind supplied a quick picture of the town and its surroundings, the lowest places, the river and its banks. “The main road?”  
      Wulf shook his head. “South road they're takin'.”  
      They'd received no orders as yet regarding that town or any other, although it lay at the center of the shire's wretched revolt, and they knew full well where Repton's sympathies were. Of course, the townsfolk would be reluctant to flee and leave their property to the enemy, whether natural or Norman; it would make sense for some to stay behind and gather what they could, while others went immediately to the brothers for shelter, praying their God for deliverance. Robert's small band had neither orders, nor the autonomy to act without them; Robert could not afford to guess wrong. But something older than everything tugged at his mind, something holier than the blessing of a Church in which he no longer believed, and more righteous than the commands of some noble buffoon who could barely read the document issuing them. _This man, who is to take away the law, must be as hard as adamant_. His heart thumped with those words, as he issued commands for the men to prepare themselves.  
      He said nothing of their destination, nor of his plan, which he himself did not yet know. But he checked his knife and ran quickly over his armour in his mind; only at this thought did he realise that his second no longer stood at his side, no doubt carried away by his typical impatience before receiving any further instruction. He looked around the camp and then squinted at the distant latrines, the most likely destination for a man before donning battle-dress. But it was to the east of them that he thought he discerned a sudden motion, spied a figure that might have been his, climbing slowly past the filthy sewers and towards the high woods beyond. Keeping his eyes trained on the spot – it was too easy to lose the man in this murky weather – he ordered his armour prepared for his return, then strode away with increasing speed, drawn in the same direction his second had gone.  
      In his youth Robert had trained himself to move without sound; he'd required stealth to creep unseen past his tormentors, and finally, the day before his departure, to exact his revenge upon them. Now, Robert walked casually, as if merely hastening away to relieve himself, but then moved past the ditches and darted silently into the glen. He'd not used the trick in years, and breath exploded in his ears as he gave pursuit; the quiet run demanded control, and his muscles screamed with strain. But he ran, following the red-blond hair through the trees, both dreading and longing for whatever had summoned Edgar hence. For he surely intended that Robert see him; he _must_ have, but why? They followed the course of a small stream, and the woodland was darkly, thickly green in the late afternoon; the place might have been lovely, if not for the strange suspicions cropping up in Robert's mind. Finally, Robert caught up to Edgar, slowing his pace to a soft-footed stroll; only after he'd recovered sufficient breath did he let himself be heard.  
      Edgar spun at the sudden sound. For a moment his eyes went wide. Then he barked a laugh of nervous relief and moved his hand away from his knife. “Robert, I didn't realise—”  
      “Edgar. What are you doing?”  
      “I...I needed to...well...”  
      Robert waited.  
      “...that is, I wanted..”  
      “What?”  
      Edgar looked abashedly at his commander before muttering a reluctant reply. “A few moments alone. To pray!” He looked away. “You think only fools—”  
      Robert tilted his head. “—prowl the woods before battle? You could pray anywhere. Why here?”  
      “This stream,” Edgar answered, gesturing to the nearby brook. “It's..it's sacred. To the Hunter.”  
      It looked like ordinary water to Robert, but he hadn't the time to squander in numinous speculations. “Then take your _sacrament_ , you idiot! We've little time.”  
      Edgar knelt awkwardly to the stream and held out a hand to cup some of its rushing waters. He lifted the clear fluid to his mouth, and Robert saw the brief flash of a gem upon that hand. But Edgar had never worn a jewel, not that Robert had seen, and certainly not one large enough to reflect light. Such lay far beyond a soldier's means.  
      The kinder light of day would soon fade into twilight, amidst the harsh calls of crows and crickets. _Entre chien et loup_ , they called the dusk in Normandy, the time when even the loyal dog could be mistaken for the devouring wolf; deep inside his belly, a tremor jittered, and not for the first time, Robert cursed the mind that wouldn't let him ignore that something wasn't _right_. He knew the hasty and hollow sound of swift invention, damn his memory; he _knew_ and couldn't forget. Edgar stood then, and his green eyes seemed the glinting cabochons of a snake.  
      Robert pulled his knife and pushed it to the young man's neck, thinking aloud. “These woods lead toward Saint Wystan's.”  
      Edgar stiffened at the weapon's touch. “What are you doing? It's no mat―”  
      “You spoke the Hunter's name tonight. Why would you need a saint?”  
      “I―”  
      “A Saxon saint.”  
      “Sir—“  
      “You _dare_.” It was not a question that escaped Robert's clenched teeth.  
      “ _Robert_ ―”  
      But the dagger was hard in his hands, his anger harder, a flint striking sparks on his mind. “Why.”  
      Edgar shut his eyes against a sudden welling of tears, one of which spilled over onto his face. Then he looked again at Robert, spoke the sort of plea that was all too familiar. “You'll kill me?”  
      “You'll _talk_ ,” Robert instructed, closing his inner eyes against a surge of memory, the twin odours of unchanged straw and burning flesh; his next words came in the Saxon tongue. “You are this. Yes?”  
      He could see from the start of surprise that Edgar understood, but his answer came in the language of conqueror, not conquered. “My mother.”  
      “ _Half_ traitor.”  
      Edgar grimaced, rasped a reply as bravely as he dared. “Traitor?” His breath heaved into words. “We push them into pens, call them pigs. They don't want us--”  
      “I don't want a lecture,” Robert snapped. “I want _Repton_. And you'll tell me, Edgar. Names. _Plans_.”  
      A desperate man moved in many ways, when he feared his own death near. Some men pleaded with eyes wide open, as though trying to shove some stared message into their captors' hearts. Others threatened, shouted empty insults that they couldn't fulfill. A small few went silent and dumb, dissolving into mindless madness before dying. And some forgot that they were no longer armed, tried to grab for weapons that had been taken from them weeks before...  
      Edgar's hand moved subtly; Robert could almost see the man's _thoughts_ reaching for his knife, hoping the distraction of argument would suffice. “Move and you _die_.” Nerve-jangling fear pulsed through him; Robert scorned the feeling, and the scorn fueled him. He'd done this before, he'd gotten information before, he _knew_ what to do, and so he tried a different tactic, gesturing to Edgar's hand. “What is that?”  
      Edgar turned his palm up, covering the ornament, but Robert shoved the dagger in deeper, and the ring was again bared to his eyes. Even to his inexperienced glance, it was obviously ancient, a large gem edged in gold, very costly. Robert glared at the prize, then fixed his gaze again on Edgar. “Whose purse did you cut?”  
      Edgar shook his head in denial, but the dagger's point cut off the motion, pressing a warning into his chin; finally he gave a feeble explanation. “My family.”  
      “Your _family_ ,” Robert mimicked in disgust. “No fuller could afford this.”  
      Edgar's face was red and taut with anger; the remark seemed to drive fear from him, enough to issue a hissing insult from his threatened throat. “I knew _my_ father. _Changeling!_ ”  
      “Be silent!” Robert shouted. His hands numbed with sudden needles, and for a moment the weight of anguish choked his breath... _Who knows what the fae will tell him to do today_ ― He blurted out an accusation without finesse. “You were warning the Abbey. _Them!_ ”  
      Desperation sharpened Edgar's features, his chest rising and falling with breath. “The jewel,” he gasped, his offer obvious. Slowly he held out his hand, and the gem again sparkled before Robert's eyes.  
      “And let you go.”  
      Edgar didn't respond. His eyes shone still brighter than the ring. His _eyes_ —  
      This was madness, _madness!_ Edgar would confess. He must. He had to be _made_ to see that he must; Robert reached out and grasped his arm, pulled him roughly towards him. He didn't entirely know what he could _do_ with the man at close quarters, but kept the knife closely trained on him regardless, as desperate thoughts fell over each other. Edgar was his second, _his_ ; that such betrayal could afflict him — _him_ , so brilliant! — was unthinkable; if he could only convince him, bring him back to the others — make him forget this insanity and see reason, until everything was again as it had been! He had only to make him understand, to show him that he was _wrong_ , and never mind that he'd no idea how! Still clutching the knife, he grabbed Edgar's shoulder as though trying to strike memory back into him. _Don't you remember — God, you're not theirs!_  
      The confusion he saw in Edgar's face only inflamed him more. A fanatical righteousness coursed through him, guiding his limbs with a Crusader's saving zeal (and the crushing freedom of his thoughts, goading with _God, what in the hell does it matter now!_ ); he forced Edgar's mouth to his, tasting what he'd wanted since the start ( _don't you remember?!_ ), prying apart the resistance of those curving lips; it was a kiss; it was an invasion. He felt Edgar struggle and wanted to savour his surrender; he wanted to take the man and thrust obedience into his body, if it could be done! It was not desire he felt nor want, but ferocious starveling _need_ , the same that crazed his soldiers, that had perhaps shaped _him_ into what he was—at that last, he wanted to scream, and pressed the agony of his thoughts into the other man's mouth.  
      Finally Edgar whipped his head away furiously, his cheeks flaming. “Go to _hell!_ ” he shouted, all trace of feigned deference gone. Reckless. Respectless. _Saxon_.  
      Rage lay opposite passion, and both flooded Robert, tearing him mercilessly. He wanted Edgar; he wanted him _dead!_ He hated him...he..he—  
      He could no longer think, as Edgar's hands lunged for his neck, seizing the opportunity to break away. The Saxon's curse pounded in Robert's mind and throbbed in his hands; instinctively, he snaked his free arm around the man's shoulder as if to again embrace, pushed them together with a strength that his slight appearance belied. This time his hand jerked upward, its speed honed by long hours of drilling; Edgar's eyes bulged in surprise and pain. Robert stiffened, stunned; he knew that look; God, oh _God_ he knew that look—  
      Slowly Robert tugged at his knife, wanting to re-sheath it and then somehow find a way back from this hell to which the Saxon had condemned him. The weapon seemed stuck. He pulled at it, pulled again and finally wrenched it free. The thing slipped from his hand, slick fluid coating the grip; he held onto Edgar then, who'd gone heavy as though he wearied of their struggle, wished to capitulate at last...They followed his knife to the forest floor, Robert holding him, God, _holding_ him...?!  
      Edgar rasped a single word, which Robert could hardly hear.  
      “ _Herne..._ ”  
      A gush of blood soaked Robert's hands.  
      Then Edgar said nothing more.  
      Robert's strength faltered; the man slipped inelegantly from his grasp, lying still where he was dropped. Next to the...the body, the bloodied knife. Robert lifted the weapon, the _weapon_ ; he needed it; it had just saved his life. He sliced the blade clumsily over the exposed root of a tree, left there the gore, returned the weapon to its sheath. Then he looked at his hands. A sudden sickness pulled gorge into his throat. Robert swallowed hard and told himself to breathe. In, out. So simple. Even a child could do it. Even a child—anyone could die, couldn't they, _God!_  
      Sudden panic again took him; he lunged to Edgar's side and stared like a fearful child into the slackened features, and his cry was the pathetic mewling of that accursed race, _wake up, wake up_...He shook the man's shoulders frantically. The head lolled down; the sightless pale orbs accused him, and Robert sprang back with a feral cry. Again he fell, and memories crashed over him as he crossed his arms over his eyes.  
      _It's sunset soon..._  
      _Faerie-boy...I knew **my** father! Hélias...who knows what the fae will tell him―_  
            _Once, long ago, there lived a blind woman, whose home lodged a trouble-making kobold—_  
      _pity you weren't born noble--that changeling-boy..._  
      _You, such as you are..?!_  
      _a blind woman!_  
            _my mother used to jest about her changeling son..._  
      _he knew well how men could cling to stupid tales from their youths_  
      _Herne protect us..._  
      _Herne..._  
      had the entire world gone mad  
      Had he truly been so clumsy-blind- _stupid?_  
      He had to get up, he had to, he had to get back, and he couldn't, he couldn't move. He wanted to scream; what curse could he shout, without speaking of a God he knew could be nothing more than ash and fantasy?  
      The loving-cup had moved round the circle a scant hour before, when he'd trusted his men and known who he was – when he'd had a friend and a father, instead of one transparent lie after another. He'd known nothing, he saw nothing; there _was_ nothing, save a stupid boy who pulled at his head and swiped pathetically at the air as if to beat away the cries that shook him, a trusting imbecile who hadn't heard the warnings or seen the signs right before him— _the Hunt―Herne...!_  
      He laughed hysterically, laughing and crying, that a man's last sound should be the name of something that didn't exist. “Herne,” he repeated; it wasn't funny at all, and he couldn't help laughing. The helpless paroxysms of hilarity became again sobs, and the sobs became louder and more horrible, and once again, the word came. “ _Herne!_ ”  
      His cry passed overhead between whispering leaves; tree boughs shook a heavy reply. And he swooned, senseless, crushing tender creepers with his fall.  
  
      _A man who was not a man stood there, encompassed in a beam of golden light. Fog concealed and caressed him as it flowed. Graceful curved tines rose from the crown of his head, and the tatters of his robes were twining vines and clutching roots. He raised his hands in the rustle of a wind, bestowing benediction, pronouncing judgment. Life and death rose and fell in his arms._  
      _“Who are you?” he asked. The question became the rush of rain and the shiver of a sudden breeze._  
      _“You know me, Mabon-born,” boomed a reply that shook the stones._  
      _“Herne.” The word held all of the wonder of a birth._  
      _“When the God possesses me.” He regarded the forest, his preternatural golden stare radiating the sun's fire and the stars' shimmer. “I am light.” Then he looked into the drowning wells of the young man's eyes, took gore and blood and dirt-streaked tears into his gaze. “I am darkness.”_  
      _“Who am I?”_  
      _“A leaf driven by the wind.”_  
      _“What wind?”_  
      _“Listen.” And a wind that carried the many voices of a thousand different destinies swept over him. 'Fate' was not the word and nor was 'time.'_  
      _In that silvering wind he saw, too, the glint of the blade-that-was-not, from his old familiar dream. “What is it?”_  
      _“What binds the hunter to the hunted?”_  
      _“The...the arrow.” The simple question confused him._  
      _“And so you must rise, and go from here.”_  
      _But he would linger in this eldritch peace, away from either pain or love. “Go...where?”_  
      _“Where you must. You must be resolute. Have strength.” The ancient face was a darkened crag; its yellow orbs burned with a terrible grief. “My Son must prove himself.”_  
      _“But―”_  
      _“Go.”_

      When he woke, his hands were cleansed of gore, his eyes dried of tears. He held up his palms to the moonlight, turned them over. He pressed them to his face. He could no longer think, nor did he wish to, and after a final brief touch to the body of the man who lay there — a man he had not known, who had not known him, had not...wanted... _go to hell!_  
      Adamantine, _be resolute, have strength_ — he had his orders; he must obey — he tugged the jewel hurriedly from the traitor's hand and tucked it into his purse. There wasn't time for burial; burning would signal his presence. In the end he walked stiffly from the forest, letting the Saxon linger with his God, and he did not look back.  
      He returned to the camp then, forcing his deliberate stride to betray nothing. He gave his orders to the waiting men, then made his own preparations, his new and macabre notion inured to failure by the very sacrifice which had inspired it. The men accepted Robert's few cold words about their former second-in-command, then listened to the need to intercept the rebels while they gathered, understanding as well as he did about the rebellion's obvious opportunity this night, created by a rising river, the enemy believing they would put their homes before their cause. It took but a little time before he donned a stoic resolve, along with the sturdy and warm clothes once taken from a captive. Then he moved out his men, knowing those who lodged at the Abbey that night to be no mere worshippers, and determined that they should pay for this night's work.  
      It was ten miles of eerie English countryside they must cross to reach Repton Abbey, a sturdy sanctuary built only a few decades before, after the local Priory had crumbled itself into collapse. Robert led his band in secrecy, a processional of a hundred men in unlit darkness; they traveled by the rising moon as well as they might, lest torches betray their coming. The Paganfolk among them made warding gestures at every howl and squawk, knowing it the Mabon's beginning, yet they continued. Robert himself walked amidst the armed men, vulnerable for having left his leather armour and iron maille behind. Instead, he wore a shirt and breeches, cloak and leg-bindings and boots in the Saxon way, and beneath his clothes a small silver chain bearing two charms: a silver cross, tarnishing from years of wear against sweating skin, and a ring whose weight was onerous, whose presence was vital.  
      When only a mile remained, Robert went on to the Abbey alone, running the rest of the way. At the door, he cried out to the worshippers in their own tongue, a call for sanctuary in the sacred grounds; his men lingered out of sight, at safe distance. And the door was let open to an endangered fellow-Saxon, a “friend” who claimed origin in distant Aidele and mournfully claimed himself outlawed, having fled this great distance after “stealing” his own father's jewel from a Norman lord. He showed them the ancient ring, spoke their language with evident shyness, even accepted a cup of their honey-wine while the headmen spoke quietly among themselves; as Robert had expected, they hoped to gain information about their surroundings from this unexpected, providential new arrival. He hid his nervousness, and his hand betrayed no tremor as he listened to them speak, recognising rebel names among them. To their questions, he replied honestly that he'd seen a group of soldiers nearby, perhaps setting their sights upon the Abbey. Of course, he exaggerated both their numbers and the river's height, implying strongly that even the Abbey might be drowned, laughing with perfect Saxon fatalism that it would serve the French dogs right. At last, the men resolved together to gather the saints' relics and the treasures of the Mercian kings who rested here, and make northwest, for Etewelle, to regroup and plan their attack anew.  
      Robert was stunned by the simplicity of the moment, as he watched them move. They believed him. The power of his mere words had diverted their course. And soon, their arrangements were made; he'd no notion of how long they'd prepared this gathering, or what they'd resolved to do, but reasoned the interrogators would discover their plans soon enough. Quietly he steeled himself. The doors opened, and men trickled out, hastening to move upriver before the Normans could reach them.  
      But the Normans were already there.  
      Like a saving hymn, Robert heard good, hard blows struck on unarmoured heads, softer gashes as swords cut flesh; Robert turned and fell upon the Saxon swine with equal ferocity, heedless of danger; an insane, reckless misery burst in him, grew beyond his control. His Normans were outnumbered two to one perhaps, but better weaponry and superior skill neutralized the difference in number, and some of the scum seemed to realise it: they broke and ran into the Abbey, rushing to bar the door against their killers. Robert promptly screamed for aid, and with his fellows he broke the fine glass windows at the transept, then climbed into the structure to chase down the fleeing cowards. They pursued the men room to room, wielding heavy swords with wild abandon, until they at last backed the traitors into corners and felled them where they cowered. The slaughter was swift and satisfying, and when the wallowing whelps lay dead as they deserved, the soldiers then re-opened the doors to return to the fray outside. As Robert passed the threshold, he saw — strange what one noticed in the thick of it all — one of his bowmen gaping into the desecrated church in horror. He clapped the bowman's shoulder, before hastily removing his hand with a shudder, and loudly reminded him that God was everywhere. The sarcasm in his voice went unnoticed; the bowman looked only relieved, bending to reload his weapon, having been granted some absolution that Robert almost envied.  
      It was over in a few hours, and before dawn, the chaos of yelling and posturing and even weeping — for Saxons thought nothing of bawling like babes when all was lost — had all faded to an ominous quiet. The moon streamed serenely onto the pathetic scene: the Abbey stood open and violate, its treasures being piled into heaps within, for every item won — from plain wooden longbows to fine-worked ancient gold — must be carefully reckoned for the stern Earl's accounting; there could be no “oversights” after a battle undertaken without permission. Outside the sanctuary, some forty Saxons stood, wearing similar, smoldering expressions that Robert recognised too wearily well. Ten of those captives still wore swords; violently they were dragged before the inspection of the Normans' leader, their weapons pulled from them at Robert's command. But he issued his orders with the habit of authority, nothing more. He was too exhausted to keep his mind reined; again and again the late afternoon forest darkened his thoughts; it would mire him in madness. He trembled, a dry leaf caught in winds he could neither see nor harness; aside from that sere, barren tremor, he felt nothing. _Nothing_.  
      For the first time, Robert hungered for the spoils of this war, wanting nothing more urgently than to _feel_ , the way his men so obviously did when celebrating their triumphs. He pulled a loaded crossbow from one of the guards and grabbed the arm of one of the Saxons, these men who'd been strong enough to survive; under threat of death, he dragged this other into the shelter of the Abbey's shadowed chapel. Striding past his own men, who still heaped up wealth to be counted, he feigned interrogation as his purpose, but when they reached the sacristy, he slammed shut the door and set down the crossbow, keeping his warning glare blazing as he drew knife with the other hand. Hot in his own daring, Robert spoke coldly to _his_ captive — whose pale eyes he'd glimpsed, then adamantly avoided — and curtly commanded the deeds upon which his freedom depended, lest he go to the Earl's dungeons with his kin.  
      The handsome freedman was less a fool, perhaps, than his Saxon lineage would have suggested. He first divested himself of the thin gold circling his waist and clasping his cloak, placing the treasures carefully where Robert could see them; then he knelt awkwardly before his captor, bending his high-held head low to give the other tribute commanded of him. Robert kept his eyes on the knife he held, refusing to look at the head that brushed his stomach; when it was done, he again covered his body with an impatient flick of the wrist. At his nod the Saxon stood; Robert gestured him away as though dismissing a servant, and scorn and disgust marred those chiseled features as — still eyeing the crossbow at Robert's feet — the man backed into the door that would lead him outside. Then he pushed open the portal and stepped through it, making for his escape through the Abbey's north gate. He'd run perhaps eight paces when Robert moved unhesitatingly, picking up the bow and shooting the Saxon cleanly between the shoulders, thus granting the freedom that he'd promised and protecting his own interests as well.  
      It was a freedom he envied as he stood there motionless, fixing a hollow gaze upon the crumpled corpse in the distance. His body had emptied its lust only to fill anew with a somehow deeper misery; his had been a poor and stupid trade. And the forest still waited out there for him, the _forest_ —He gripped the knife at his waist, and the weapon seemed to hone his thoughts to a new keenness. Surely he merited at least the same mercy he'd granted to a wretched _Saxon?_  
      He could. It would be simple.  
      But again he seemed to hear the resonant voice from his dream that had been no dream, the Stag-Man who had revealed to him that his destiny could never be simple, in words of arrows and sons, of light and darkness; the dagger slipped back into its sheath, his hands slackening to heedlessness as he remembered. His fingers instead drew out the chain from his neck, and he observed the gem shining there. It gleamed a brilliant purple in the dawn's light, yet had shone — he was sure of it — blue beneath the moon.  
      Robert recalled then the shining moon, the _light and darkness_ that would reign in equal measure this Mabon; he had eighteen years this day. And he was a man now, in a way he'd not been before, for the law that he'd known lay broken, everything he'd known false. It thus was time that he prove himself: that he make at last _his own law_ , and _to hell_ with anyone who would _dare_ tell him differently. He emerged from the Abbey then, neither touching the holy water at its entrance nor crossing himself as he passed; the men who witnessed him leave the sanctuary alone saw his deadened features, and they dared not ask where his prisoner had gone.  
      Three days hence, Robert de Rainault stood before the Earl of Darby. He personally presented the nobleman with much fine-worked Saxon gold that, privately, he believed the idiot ill-deserved. But he spoke the right words to flatter the noble's pride and to carefully present himself as a humble servant. The gem stayed hidden beneath his clothes, a heavy reminder of his talents, of the penalty for entrusting the lying traitors who surrounded him. He must keep strict allegiance to himself alone, and with all others, be changeable as the stone he held. If Herne's Son — whatever that chosen state signified — must be tested and proven, so be it; he would await the Stag to reveal His purpose, and shape the world by his word meanwhile.  
      The Saxon prisoners were brought to languish in the Earl's cells, and perhaps they wondered why the swarthy Norman commander questioned them not only about the rebellion's aims and their fellows' plans, but about the Hunter and His sacred signs. Yet they dared show none of their confusion, nor answer with less than complete honesty, lest the hawk-faced man prove himself the predator he resembled. And when they'd given their replies, they were turned over to the Earl's interrogators; eventually, the prisoners of Repton were dealt with, in one fashion or another.  
      Robert then demanded relocation, under the guise of witty conversation, during a sumptuous meal and fragrant wine for which his own silver had paid. He couldn't tell the Earl the true reason for his sudden interest in the transfer, but then, he didn't have to; the district he'd requested was a stronghold of the King, and the Earl had smiled indulgently as if amused by de Rainault's bold ambition. It also, fortunately for Robert, was in open revolt, and perhaps — as Robert was quick to suggest — could be subdued with the same sort of trickery and daring that had plowed Repton beneath the mud.  
      Then Robert prepared himself, donning a heavy cloak in anticipation of another place that would surely be as cold and miserable as all of the rest of this lightless country. And the morning after that lavish feast, he was embraced, and provisioned, and escorted at last towards Nottinghamshire, in the swift silence of a leaf blown on an eastward wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original chapter _Corundum_ , published in September 2013, was a hasty and inadequate sketch, which lacked both necessary detail and logical flow; I was unhappy with it from the start. This revision gives more details of the young Robert's early career and, I hope, better explains his deeds on this dark Mabon eve, as well as the decisions that follow.


	5. Gold (I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sole warning for this chapter is attempted murder/assassination. The story goes now to Nottingham Castle; the year is 1187.

"But what good is the splendor of bygone banquets to a starving man? What good is the clinking of gold that a poor man hears through the wall of time? The gods must be called."  
—Ernst Jünger

"The road to hell isn't paved with gold, it's paved with faith."  
—Jarod Kintz

"But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold."  
— _Job_ 23.10

      Beneath a soft bronze point, ink droplets blossomed into curves and rondels, crests and vales, guided into shape by a practised hand. The words upon the thick vellum were beautifully scribed, but without sense to any save their scrivener. They followed a cipher that had been invented years before, an idiosyncratic blending of Norman French and Anglo-Saxon English, absent numerals or punctual signs, with the consonants moved down once and the vowels flipped. By now, Robert de Rainault could read the code with ease, and he was equally confident that no-one else could. Should any discover this document, the reckoning of his growing accounts, they would know neither the location of his well-hidden property nor its full measure. Carefully he completed the lowest line, the description of a linked golden chain and its approximate value, tapped powder onto the sheet and cleaned the stained pen. Then he folded the sheet into one hand and shook fine dust into a finely gilded box. The updated paper tied neatly again into its habitual rounded shape, settling easily amongst other documents in his desk, and the case for his tools was quickly reassembled and set aside. Then he lifted the gold links from his shoulders and weighed them carefully in his hands.  
      He crossed the spacious chamber, still so new to him as to feel like guest quarters, and tugged aside a heavy grey cloth that covered a small shelf against the wall. It blended so well into the bare stones of this room that no-one could idly notice its presence. And like his personal documents, the contents of this tiny enclosure would have baffled any who discovered it by happenstance. It held nothing but a small candle stub in a holder, a branching shape of gold-gilded wood, and a silver blade-that-was-not-a-blade resting in an ornate carved box. Shaking away the habitual feeling of absurdity, Robert lit the small candle from a larger taper, then placed the golden chain to rest before the shining antlers. To call this space a “shrine” would suggest an awed devotion, and to deem his livery chain an “offering” would imply an act of graciousness with no expectation of return; there was less reverence or gratitude in Robert's act than recompense, giving power in exchange for power granted. The chain was his to give as he pleased, and so he chose to evoke the Hunter's favour with its beauty — especially as he could no longer wear the ornament after this morning, anyhow.  
      Then he lifted the weight of the “blade” and traced the ancient artifact which he held, regarding its ornate embossing with grudging appreciation. Again he read the tiny runes engraved upon its surface:

      _I am the Sun, my bearer the Moon._

      The Arrow's former Guardian had been a Saxon peasant — a man stupid enough to run to a stone circle while his village was burning to the ground — and he'd had no idea of the treasure he held, carrying the thing in a common quiver alongside wood and steel. That the cult-object itself was widely known as the _Silver_ Arrow spoke much for the hopelessness of the Saxon race; the Arrow was pure electrum in composition, and had it been sold for its metal, it could have fed the inhabitants of Loxley village for three generations. But ignorant reverence had kept the Arrow in the possession of imbeciles; Robert felt the strange thrill of power each time he lifted the thing, and yet the illiterate peasants who'd guarded the Arrow had never utilised it as more than a quaint fetish to pass down lines of descent — along with, no doubt, their own inbred imbecility. Certainly none of that primitive race could have read the Arrow's inscription, nor satisfactorily interpreted its enigmatic message.  
      Even Robert had exhausted alchemical and astronomical knowledge, in speculating upon why a shaft of electrum should identify itself as the solar body and dub its possessor the lunar. Utilising symbols, correspondences, and positions, he had formed many theories, but found no clear proof. As for the Stag, well, whether His alleged appearance seven years before had been some mystical manifestation, or merely a hysteria-induced hallucination, the Hunter had not reappeared, had granted neither clarification nor comfort to his “Son.”  
      At first, Robert had coaxed and pleaded to the absent “deity”; he had even _prayed_ , he now recalled, with a sudden flush of irritated embarrassment. He'd dripped wine from his fingertips and offered victuals from his table. He'd bound himself to nature in a sort of _imitatio Dei_ , walking through the woods beneath the full moon, climbing high hills in the blaze of mid-day, carrying the Arrow always with him — the Moon holding the Sun. When his calls had borne no fruit, he began to demand the Stag's presence, with all of his strength of will. But as the weeks and months of silence became years, Robert began to omit the Hunter's name from his meals and to drink his own wine casks down to their dregs, wasting none of it upon a capricious and untrustworthy beast. And guests to the castle did well to remember that its mercurial châtelain would quickly start a squabble with anyone asking Herne the Hunter's blessing at table.  
      Robert began to wonder what one could reasonably expect from a “god” loved by such an irascible, traitorous, roundabout people. The Saxons' minds resembled their art, he'd thought bitterly, time and again, tracing the Arrow's knot patterns around with his gaze, as they wound upon themselves in endless obfuscating circles. A Saxon could not even receive a bone-tired guest without offering flatteries and boring recitations, relating hierarchy and lineage in a lengthy spiel; their customs had frustrated Robert to no end during his time among them. Any deity that guarded such tedious folk would likely expect even _more_ time-squandering pageantry from his worshippers, and Robert had realised listlessly that he possessed neither the while nor the will for such posturing.  
      But three years after he'd claimed the Arrow as his due, Robert had pieced together another message, one that had passed in whispers of hope between Saxon folk since Senlac:

      _In the days of the Lion spawned of the Devil’s Brood, the Hooded Man shall come to the forest. There he will meet Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Trees, and be his son and do his bidding. The Powers of Light and Darkness shall be strong within him. And the guilty shall tremble._

      His heartbeat had quickened into a war-drum when he heard the prophecy, interrogated from the stammers of weak Saxon prisoners, who'd understood little of the words they babbled. But Robert could feel the truth in them, the same truth that had fallen deeply into his mind once far across the Sea, in a room full of scrolls. The meaning there was plain to anyone with knowledge; it was Prince Richard who held the name _Lionheart_ , his entire Plantagenet lineage superstitiously scorned as devilspawn. And Robert himself had seen _light and darkness_ , had indeed met the God in the forest. Only the mention of a Hooded Man had confused him — until this day.  
      Robert gently set the Arrow into its place at his side, sheathing it and binding it for safekeeping to the ties lining his coat. Then he pulled out the coat's openings, made certain that the lines of fur-trimmed silk revealed nothing of the artifact beneath. Then he touched the finely worked belt at his waist, ran palms over the ruched sleeves pinned perfectly into place, and again arranged the smooth folds at torso and hip. The weight of riches lay heavily but impressively upon him, and his hands clumsily tugged on the rings he now wore openly by right of position – a sapphire on the left, sparkling twilight purple in the candlelight, and a deep-set moonstone on the right. Then he looked down at his feet, covered by soft shoes of purple-dyed leather, beneath which lay golden rings fitted to the toes.  
      The former field-commander knew well the power of gold to gild his path. Seven years earlier, Loxley town had fallen, the last rebel stronghold in Nottinghamshire razed into nonexistence, after the straggling remnants in Darbyshire had been executed in as brutal a public display as the law would allow. He'd returned to the Earl of Darby's estate in triumph, only to discover that his benefactor had met a fate befitting his foolishness: after siphoning obscene quantities from the tithes due the royal treasury, and keeping a detailed ledger to outline his perfidy, the Earl of Darby had gone to King Henry's prisons in Kaem, his estates entirely confiscated and his sons denied the Earl's title. With those extensive holdings now the concern of a beleaguered King, fighting tooth-and-claw to hold his own against the Lion of Normandy, Henry was only too relieved to leave the English Midlands to anyone who could rule there loyally. So Robert, eagerly seeking retirement from field-service, had employed his war gains — originally intended as barter goods, for the Earl of Darby's support — to finally settle his obligations to the Visconte de Cléville and then gain an appointment of his _own_ choosing, as châtelain to Nottingham Castle. And when ongoing spats of resistance continued to rattle Nottinghamshire, Sheriff Ranulf Murdac had endured three years of it, before at last conscripting the aid of his keen-eyed, talented castellan, promoting Robert to Deputy Sheriff.  
      In those exhausting years — when Robert wasn't wasting effort in mortifyingly foolish pursuit of a “god” — he had overseen Nottingham's walls heightened and its fortifications strengthened; he'd installed a small garrison of knights in residence, earning their loyalty with the same “oversights” he'd employed on campaign. Then, once the castle had been secured, he and Murdac had levied draconian travel restrictions upon the serfs of Nottinghamshire and taxed them to the limits of what they could spare, virtually eliminating any chance of the townsfolk uniting in future insurgence. Of course Robert had pocketed small treasures that caught his eye, but never enough to be missed, never clearly recorded. That gold had filled his goblet with wines the likes of which he'd never before sampled, so much so that he could stumble from the great hall in forgetful, intoxicated bliss from the quantities he drank. Gold bribes, disguised as fine tableware — which Robert had encouraged favoured guests, after sumptuous feasts, to keep — had moved property boundaries in his favour and placed avaricious men into positions of influence. Gold had even made radiant his raptor-sharp features and guided handsome men of ambition into his bed.  
      Returning his thoughts to the present, Robert snuffed out the small candle with his fingertips and then pulled the grey cloth back into its place; it covered the glint of his Deputy's chain, that small hope that “Herne's Son” might yet learn his purpose, or at least be acknowledged in his identity. Surely it could be no-one else; despite the Saxons' devotions, it would make no sense for the Hunter to choose his champion from the pathetic race that he'd allowed to be so ignominiously defeated. Robert had witnessed enough of dishonourable Saxon pleading and shaking and sobbing under the torturers' tools, and all for stubborn peasant bravado, to keep from simply confessing crimes that they were already _known_ to have committed. He knew to show only righteous scorn whenever _the guilty shall tremble_. If the Hunter had not yet recognised his stalwart loyalty, nor granted him even the simple courtesy of an explanation — well, Robert, at least, had never faltered in his strength. And in the meantime, he'd found a more genuine and immediate ally than the spectre of vision and prophecy, for Saxon gold had opened more opportunities to Robert than ever had the Saxons' god.  
      Then his queue of hair brushed his neck, distracting him; in annoyance, Robert touched the long braid that fell between his shoulderblades and ran an impatient hand over his beard. He still wore his hair in the Celtic way, though his days of wooing Saxon loyalties, by assumed names and feigned affections, had long ended. It ill-suited the imminent ceremony that he should attend unkempt like a Saxon savage, but since the cursed barber could not reach the castle for another two days, he had made shift by having gold thread and beading woven into the locks. Fortunately, before he could fuss any further over his own appearance, a gentle tapping at his door told him that it was time. Robert passed a quick touch over the sapphire he wore, rubbing it as if to summon good fortune from the gem. But he needed no further luck, for here he stood, ready to assume the highest rank that a man of his birth could hope to achieve — an honour almost unheard-of for one of only twenty-six years. And he flung open the door with unintended strength, startling the page on its other side. Nodding curtly to the youth, Robert gestured for the velvet-clad boy to proceed; the lad bowed tremulously and clutched his torch, as he led the master to the great hall.  
      Robert knew himself to be prepared. He knew his appearance to be orderly and rich and impressive, and he certainly felt no nervousness, not in the least; anyhow, his wealth would amply balm any foolish concerns. Nottingham's treasury would guard him from danger and privation, quell the questioning of _what now_ that woke him in the night, as it had since his appointment had been confirmed; it would even silence the nasty and smug surmises about his origins, from those who now faced him as he glided down the steps into the great hall.  
      He felt power beginning to cover him like a heavy mantle. The Hooded Man. Even the Saxons were not stupid enough to believe in a saviour who came into his power by putting a covering on his head. _Hooded_ meant _hidden_ , shrouded in obscurity, and Robert needed no cloak to understand the need of secrecy. It could not be allowed to matter that _de Rainault_ did not name one of the noble houses of Kaem, nor could it be known that Robert himself was only really _de Gascur_ , his father's name hidden beneath years of deception. Perhaps it was fortuitous that Hélias had passed six months earlier, for he was then able to inform his mother that he no longer believed in _changelings_ , and thus eliminate all risk of feckless jesting suggesting his true origins. Today, only Hugo stood with him, and Robert followed the noble custom of heraldry in gowning them both — followed it by _implication_ , dressing both his brother and himself in robes of elderberry purple and silver.  
      It was the stern, purse-lipped William Brewer who stood for the King — the latter of whom could hardly rush from warfare to invest one of his Sheriffs — and Robert knew Brewer to be tremendously pleased with this appointment, though one would never know it from his cheerless face. Murdac's sudden fall had left Brewer as the likely successor; having already held, and loathed, the Sheriffship of Devonshire, he immediately began casting wide and indiscriminate nets to find a man corrupted enough for the demesne of power, yet astute enough to check his excesses. Robert had no certain knowledge of Brewer's reasons for settling upon him in the end. Perhaps the able politician had been over-eager to return to the King's side and his power games at Court, or maybe he'd appreciated the brash scorn of the young de Rainault's aspect, or perhaps he simply liked the heavy Mercian goblet that Robert had reluctantly parted with in pursuit of the coveted office. But Brewer had chosen, and if the noblefolk resented his selection of an upstart pup from the seneschal's class, they kept their anger wisely silent.  
      Robert's brother — half-brother, truly, though Robert would never grant Hugo the power of knowing that — also stood upon the dais, as representative of the Church, shifting uneasily at Brewer's left and engulfed by a huge golden cross upon his breast. Robert knew the thing to be only gilded bronze, for he'd had it quickly made in advance of this rite. Truly, he couldn't have been more surprised to learn of his dour brother's “vocation” if Hugo had announced intention to take up residence in a brothel. But when the Abbot of Saint Mary's had shuttled off the mortal coil — more a mortal rod, by the time the ancient coot had finally gone to burial — then Robert had again created opportunity, and no small measure of resentment, by buying the position that others had worked for years to attain. He'd brought his brother across the Sea at his own expense, and it had secretly delighted him to dazzle his sibling with his fine robes and easily worn power, then offer him the kiss of peace in magnanimous pardon of childhood sins. Hugo's answering shock had been badly hidden, his wary suspicion of such simple forgiveness evident; Robert suspected that his brother had toiled upon aching knees for years to earn the same absolution from his so-called “God.”  
      The investiture was brief, the words Latin and of little interest, as they mentioned God with such monotonous frequency that Robert half-expected fluttering cherubs to set a halo upon his head when the prayers were done. Distracted and impatient with ceremony, he began making mental plans for the castle and for his residence within it. His first order of business, he decided, was to appoint no deputy and to rule here alone, for Nottingham Castle had fallen a year before, after a minor revolt which should have been inconsequential — except that the last Sheriff had been involved, and later indicted. Robert had seen the direction in which the winds blew, had testified against his former master when it became clear that there was no hope for the man's acquittal. And though Robert planned to make few alliances, choosing with far more care than the unfortunate Murdac had...well, he'd have no others to offer testament of his misdeeds, should his own judgment day ever come.  
      His planning was interrupted by an expectant pause from Brewer. Answering in clear and practised Latin, Robert gave the ritual response, to all of the duties with which he was charged: “I will.” Then Brewer lifted a heavy chain of interlinked golden plaques, woven with decoration and inlaid with semi-precious stones; Robert noted with pleasure that it was a chain he himself had taken from Aulbury some years before. And the badge of office and of fealty to the King — the _King_ — was placed over his sloping shoulders and upon his breast.  
      Robert had always considered cheering a feeble-minded expression of obviously false delight; he'd ordered none of it. But a murmur swept through the hall as he turned to face the assemblage, bowing for the first — and, he resolved, the _only_ — time before the people he was now sworn to serve. Then he turned and looked to the left of the dais, in a dark corner, where the dungeons' enchained prisoners were lined up. Brewer then placed a key and a sword into his hands, tools of his office, symbolic of the duties now upon him.  
      It was customary to grant a general amnesty upon ascending to the shire-reeve's office. Since the days of the earliest hundred-court, the Saxons had inexplicably agreed that, on special days of high appointments, justice was irrelevant, and it was perfectly satisfactory to allow convicted criminals to go free and return to wreaking havoc upon peaceable, useful, _taxable_ villagers. Well, custom be _hanged_ , Robert thought, briefly amused by his unintended pun, and gesturing to the guardsmen, he ordered the prisoners returned to their cell.  
      Then the nobles' voices, which had only whispered before, clamoured in open disbelief. Robert scanned the hall closely, keeping his chin high to convey aloof pride. As usual, he ignored the servants, anticipating only dirty looks from dirty faces if he bothered to look at the Saxon unfortunates who'd expected their brethren freed; well, there was his lesson for them on obeying the law, if they had sense enough to understand it. But even the Normans in attendance looked shocked, as did Hugo who, by Robert's memory, had never respected civilised ideals like _justice_. Only Brewer's mien acknowledged him with shrewd approval. So Robert kept his eyes lifted to the King's man, and he didn't notice the scuffle forming behind him.  
      Brewer sharply looked up and stepped forward, as two guards rushed to flank their new-made lord; Robert turned to see a face made hideous by hatred and wide-eyed anger, an arm raised high over all of their heads, and that arm held a table knife. Instinctively he reached for the dagger at his belt, but before he could use it, the woman's arms had been wrenched away from the Sheriff; the knife she'd grabbed from a noble's servant had clattered to the floor and quickly been returned to its careless owner. She was shrieking and sobbing in her own tongue, so hysterical that Robert could barely discern the words — something about a husband, or a son, some male relation among those incarcerated wretches. But her mouth snapped shut, and then fell open, and she looked at Robert's hand with horror. “Herne... _Herne, se seolfor stræl!_ ” she cried, shocked.  
      He followed her glance downward and then quickly covered the Arrow — _the Arrow_ , which he'd stupidly grasped instead of his knife. “Take her away!” he ordered furiously, then looked around sharply. Again he avoided the servants' eyes; if they hadn't recognised the object he held before, the woman's reckless shout would certainly clarify what they'd just seen. The few nobles who still looked at him seemed either confused or indifferent; the rest gossiped eagerly among themselves. In the peculiar currency of their world, this news was priceless: the story of a High Sheriff who'd broken ancient custom and then escaped assassination, all within five minutes of his investiture.  
      Hugo and Brewer hurried down from the dais as the woman was ferociously pulled away, alongside the chained Saxon men. “Good God,” Hugo muttered breathlessly. “Robert, what was that all about?”  
      “I've no idea,” he answered, his voice cracking beneath feigned indifference. “Perhaps she supported the Saxon candidate for the Sheriffship?”  
      Brewer actually laughed aloud at that. Then Robert looked beyond the two men and raised his arms expectantly. At his gesture, the musicians began to play, and the servers began to disperse their platters' contents among the guests, who quickly found seats with cheerful anticipation. Hugo gave a gruff nod and a wry smile, then obediently proceeded to the table upon the platform.  
      But Brewer lingered for a moment, speaking to Robert in the woman's same tongue. “I thought you understood the Saxon speech.”  
      The Sheriff lifted an eyebrow and responded in kind. “When it suits me to do so.” Then he called over the Captain of the guards, and rather than charge the man with unraveling Saxon lies, he issued a much simpler order. “I want the woman hanged at once,” he pronounced. “And when you deliver the verdict, watch her. Hang with her any man or boy she embraces.”  
      The Captain nodded and departed, and then the three men of power sat together amiably after the morning's ceremony, which had gone off quite well despite the interruption by an unpleasant womanly outburst. Robert drank deeply of an astoundingly fine vintage and took only fruit from the elaborate dishes, to keep the wine's languid fire burning within himself for as long as possible. The Burgundy rushed to his head with hypnotic speed, like rubies raining into his hands, and as he sat and watched the feasting of _his_ appointment, in _his_ castle, he thought briefly of the Arrow. His smile faded, then returned, as the wine and the chain's officious weight soothed away the morning's events.  
      Suddenly, he remembered the Arrow's inscription, and as the sun's mid-day height illumined his vestments in a shimmer of gold and silver, he considered the words in an entirely new light – recalling that the pallid Moon, with all of its mystery, could rise up to eclipse even the Sun.


	6. Gold (II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings. Still Nottingham Castle. The year now 1201.

"Gold is the corpse of value."  
—Neil Stephenson

      Centuries before, a fine hall such as this would have been hung with victory banners and trophies, and echoed with the merriment of feasting, the boisterous play of friendship. Well, the Sheriff mused, _comitatus_ was another foolish Saxon custom, better preserved in the annals of memory than observed at the meals of a county official. Over the last candlemark, the only sounds in Nottingham's hall had come from a weary knight and the serving-wench who attended his meal. The clatters of platter and goblet, the scuffle of fingertips, the moist thrusts and jabs of the eating-knife were repeated again and again, and the Sheriff darkly noted the knight's hands beginning to fumble as the silence continued. Robert looked to his right, where a jessed falcon perched quietly beneath a hood of Lincoln green, and then to his left, where a plate of meat rested untouched next to an empty, clean cup. He brooded in his throne, fine and aloof in a pale blue tunic, and he stared up to the balcony that shadowed the hall, saying nothing.  
      Intent upon his ruminations, he didn't notice at first when the knight finished eating, but gradually became aware of a hush through his hall. Gisburne sat with hands primly folded upon the table in front of him, awaiting his lord's dismissal, and at least he'd learned enough to stay silent when one of his master's black moods descended. Robert's eyes slid to his vassal and then back to the rafters. Some bleak sensibility savoured the discomfort of it all, the miniscule vengeance of forcing the knight to tarry. For seven years Robert had fostered the man, had provenanced him food and shelter, clothed him and placed upon him the tools of the fighter's trade. He'd granted the knight sponsorship and protection, when the men of the nobles' class — knowing Gisburne the disgraced runaway of a noble house — wouldn't have glanced at him. Christ, the Sheriff had even ignored his own resolve and raised Gisburne to the deputy's office, placing the knight at his side, allowing him the respect of rank and allegiance.  
      So let Gisburne wait. De Rainault had already waited far too long, in bitter and futile expectation of some reward for his patronage.  
      Let _him_ wait, _damn_ him.  
      Another half-candlemark passed. The hall's silence was punctuated only by sounds of rustling cloth and shifting weight, and each time Gisburne moved, he looked hopefully up to the dais. But neither the Sheriff nor his avian companion budged, and the serving-wench had not returned after clearing away the supper remnants, and so the knight sat in enforced solitude, on edge, awaiting the blow of some unseen bludgeon. Gisburne folded his hands one way, and then another. His right knee jittered. Finally, when even his eyelids began to slump, he pushed back from the bench and stood. “My lord,” he said, his voice pitching nervously.  
      When the Sheriff didn't recognise him, he cleared his throat and tried again, more loudly. “My lord.”  
      Still no response.  
      “I...that is...I will..retire now, if that is...acceptable.”  
      The knight's efforts at diplomacy were pitiable; deep down, de Rainault sighed, hardly able to believe that this was all his “deputy” had learned of such situations.  
      Gisburne waited another few moments and, when no reply came, he took a few steps gingerly backwards, as if retreating from a king. His hearty farewell was false and over-loud. “Good night, then,” he proclaimed, giving a small bow. Then he turned and walked away, his gait almost swift enough to be a trot.  
      Only when the door had shut behind the odious fool did Robert de Rainault lower his eyes, in a blazing glare that, had he seen it, would have afforded Gisburne even less comfort than the Sheriff's silence. Then Robert drew his dagger from its sheath and turned his attention to the uneaten meal and the perch that flanked him. He plucked the bird's hood away, revealing the falcon's majestic head, and drew the bird's interest with a shred of flesh impaled upon his knife. Ajax — he'd named the falcon himself — seized upon the morsel; it vanished quickly after a few claps of the beak.  
      Robert began feeding the bird the contents of the dish, as the predator shifted eagerly upon the perch. The falcon would grow fat upon the castle larders if allowed, but the Sheriff understood the utility of leaving the bird just a bit of hunger; a complacent, satisfied hunter had no impetus to the hunt. De Rainault moved slowly, trying to calm his fury by lavishing attention upon the only creature he owned who didn't flee from his anger.  
      But even Ajax seemed to sense his master's agitation, snapping at shreds of meat with increasing ferocity, and eventually Robert put the dagger down, little needing to lose a finger along with his temper. Crooning impatiently to the bird, Robert deftly replaced the hood, before Ajax could recognise it and squawk protest. Then the Sheriff rose, taking up his goblet and going to the table so recently vacated by the obnoxious knight. He couldn't postpone the decision any longer; he'd sat here half the afternoon without resolving anything, scolding himself as a useless old sop, soft as the slop considered food by those English dogs.  
      He poured himself a drink, then looked around his hall and lifted the cup to his lips. The wine was sour, but he drank it down. He felt certain there was a time when he'd cared about the quality of the wine in his hall, had even savoured its taste. Now it was enough that the drink be strong and abundant, and Robert intended to avail himself of both qualities to wash away the bitter taste of hot, humid air in his throat. A storm was coming; an empty bed awaited him, and he was in no hurry to sleep, not like Gisburne—  
      _Gisburne._  
      Fifteen years ago, he'd sat triumphantly in this hall and resolved to hold his great office alone; that had been his wise plan, a sound decision — until his eyes had begun to cross and his writing-desk groan from the requests carried in daily by Nottingham's messengers. There came a day when Robert realised he hadn't seen sunlight in a week, not that he was so very fond of the open air, but surely his office should grant at least the privilege his serfs enjoyed, while they broke their backs upon his fields. His eminent position should grant something besides food he rarely stopped to eat and revelries he could never attend, in fine clothes he didn't bother to wear, measured out by a tailor who'd little choice but to crawl round his feet and stretch out his arms one at a time, all the while he continued working without cease. Finally he'd sent word to Hugo, complaining that he'd find an early grave beneath a pile of paperwork if no relief could be had. Fortunately, Hugo had treated his statement as a request for help rather than incentive to celebration, dispatching two of the slower monks from amongst the scribes of Saint Mary's. But rumblings of disquiet began in the south, and Robert had needed to don armour and take to horse, riding circuit in his shire to again see and be seen. And when he'd returned, he'd found a fresh mountain of inked nonsense awaiting him; the resultant explosion of frustrated temper — complete with hurling of scrolls — had nearly sent his hired clerics running back to their Abbey.  
      It couldn't be borne; he couldn't be everywhere simultaneously. Slowly, his distant fear of betrayal, his resolve of solitude, had softened before the imminent threat of becoming an old man bound to a stone prison. And only then, of course, had an addlepated distant “cousin” in Normandy had the gall to _die_ , right before the Michaelmas tithes came due. De Rainault had been summoned, back across the Sea, to dispense a pathetic inheritance whose amount hadn't remotely justified the expense and trouble of the journey. In fact, after revolt had broken out near Honfleur, Robert's share of the money had just barely covered the cost of hired mercenaries, intended to guard himself and his brother's steward on their return trip to port.  
      They'd taken an obscure forested road that wound well around the city and hadn't been used in ages; it had seemed the wisest route at the time. But since nothing had gone right during the entire bloody trip, Robert was almost unsurprised when an ambush came, a scant twenty miles from the harbour, from a rabble of half-starved thugs. He'd survived the attack, and so had most of the mercenaries, but two unpleasant developments had come from the fiasco: Hugo's steward lay dead, an arrow embedded in his back, and Robert had deduced that one of his entourage was a pretender. The Sheriff had already noticed the odd lad, to be sure, who had more of a pout than a mouth and seemed capable of neither speech nor laughter. But apparently, the swordsman _could_ ride and fight on horseback — as Robert had realised when the youth mounted _his_ mare and tore off after the assailants, shrieking challenges in rather salty French.  
      In short, there was a fair-haired, tall, lanky _Norman_ among them, slouching amidst the bulky, swarthy Flemish foot soldiers that Robert had hired, and the youth was evidently a trained horseman too _stupid_ to maintain his own disguise in the heat of battle. Infuriated by the deception, the Sheriff had pulled the boy aside and quickly intimidated him into revealing his identity. And so Robert de Rainault had discovered Guy de Gisborne, missing from his family's estates for the last two years, a noble's son roughing it with common hired swords. Moved by an unfortunate whim — which Robert couldn't satisfactorily explain to himself, after — he'd brought the youth to Nottinghamshire. He'd even sponsored him for the knighthood he'd not yet attained, meting out both challenge and embrace himself. And the young man's eyes, the colour of the Soluente in sunlight, had stared at him with something like unto worship that day...  
      The Sheriff startled from a shot of pain lancing up his wrist, and he heard the falcon's start of agitation, a shake of talons against the jess. De Rainault looked down and realised that he'd slammed his goblet hard upon the table. Shaking his head, he poured himself another cup of wine and drained it dry; Christ, what a doddering fool he'd become in his dotage, that he'd remember well such wretched events. The day he'd nearly been murdered in this very hall. The day he'd almost been killed in a forest by desperate bandits. The day he'd uncovered yet another liar in the wilderness and teased the truth out of him with a knife; in hindsight, he should have ended it there, left another deceitful body rotting in the dirt.  
      But Robert had had intentions for the fair young nobleman, and his scheme had needed a courtier, not a corpse. The joyless Gisborne — _Gisburne_ , in the English tongue — seemed to lack any purpose in his existence, merely slogging through the hours with grim determination. Even then his loyalty had seemed a precarious commodity, but one that Robert could well afford, especially to bargain for what _should_ have proven a very lucrative match. For Lady Marion of Leaford — and the gorgeous properties of Leaford Grange — had both come recently under the dubiously-motivated “guardianship” of the Abbot Hugo. But Robert hoped that, if his new protégé could be polished and presented to the young Marion, she might fall sway to youthful beauty long enough to accept a betrothal. The lady would regret her lusty impulses the moment the soldier opened his mouth, no doubt, but Robert cared far less about the couple's profit than his own. He could claim Leaford Grange as his _droit du seigneur_ and thus secure a handsome return on his relatively small investment in Gisburne.  
      Then Robert had introduced the intended couple, and despite the rot that minstrels sang about love entering through the eyes, the Lady and the Knight had merely stared at each other in mutual dislike. Marion's loathing had been so obvious that Robert had suddenly envisioned the headstrong girl displaying a bedsheet stained by castration. Hugo had pompously refused to force an undesired marriage upon a grieving daughter, and it was plain that the pair would never agree to be wed; they'd never lower chins long enough to touch lips. So Hugo was stuck with Gisburne, and hated him, and their mutual antagonism had again brought the knight to Robert's attention. Christ, but what was _he_ to do with a youth who could find trouble even while living in a blasted _monastery?_  
      Then the outlaws had entered Sherwood Forest, and the entire issue had become moot. The exhausted Sheriff was suddenly confronted with one threat too many — and one betrayal more than he could endure.  
      To be just, Gisburne had known nothing of the Sheriff of Nottingham's long history with the forest and its “god.” And he'd at least possessed the wits to deliver the “King of Sherwood”'s message verbatim, and then to disappear quickly after seeing the Sheriff's livid reaction.  
      _Tell the Sheriff of Nottingham that Robin Hood holds Sherwood. Tell him Herne's Son has claimed his kingdom._ The steward's pudding-witted confusion had only made the blow sting more harshly, and when the Sheriff's arm had flown, Gisburne had pushed a groomsman before him and then bolted before the fist could strike. De Rainault had fallen silent for four days, while the entire castle trembled and, as word of the message spread, a few astute courtiers wondered why Robin i'the Hood thought that the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire should care about a band of serfs scruffing about in Sherwood Forest.  
      The Sheriff had known why. He could almost see that sylvan “deity” whispering _his_ secrets into the ears of the hellion serf, the two laughing - _laughing_ \- at him, _at him!_ De Rainault had blanched and fumed and purpled at the thought, at the stabbing knife of prophecy and the waste, the senseless, stupid _waste_ of his time and resources, on what must have been the mealy-minded, head-knocked delusion of a child.  
      Finally, there had come the night that de Rainault had taken a torch through the dark tunnel that ran deep below the castle, taking with him all he possessed of Herne the Hunter. The passage opened into a small glade, a verdant gateway to Sherwood's expanse, and there he stood, for a long time. Then he burned all he carried, reducing ancient manuscripts and irreplaceable relics to cinders. And when boiling ashes blew through a sudden angry wind, he brandished his torch and spoke a final time to the traitor: _I am the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Darbyshire, and the Royal Forests. You are the powerless poppet of a defeated race. And this forest stands only because **I** allow it!_  
      Robert shifted uncomfortably as his own voice echoed through his memory. His second mistake had come soon after: he'd allowed Gisburne — who hadn't possessed the wits to hide _himself_ convincingly, for Christ's sake — to surveil Nottingham's grounds during the ill-fated archery competition that had followed. That luckless contest had been de Rainault's last desperate attempt to recoup his losses. And he'd had the dungeon amply prepared, gleaming chains at the ready, for the Sheriff had intended to capture the King of Sherwood and torture every last scream of knowledge from him, before driving the Silver Arrow through his stinking flesh. Instead, the pup had come with insufferable boldness, armed with a poor man's strung stick, donning flour and horsehair to pass for a white-bearded dotard, and wearing a name — the _Hedger of Castleton_ — that, in retrospect, couldn't have been more obvious if he'd announced himself _the Revenger of Loxley_. What had _Castleton_ been but a veiled threat, and what _else_ might _Herne's Son_ know? The Sheriff would know none of it, now, since Gisburne had all but escorted the outlaws through the gates, from which they'd bolted back to the obscurity of their insect-riddled, filth-infested little “kingdom.”  
      And so, the knight's tongue had delivered enough bad news already, and that was _before_ Gisburne had disgraced himself — and his master — in Elsdon village. Robert had endured reams of nonsensical poppycock about witchcraft and Satan, hoping all the while that Hugo and Gisburne would eventually run out of stupid things to say, and that had been only the beginning of the long, absurd affair. Yet de Rainault had still taken Gisburne back from Sherwood, after the quarter-wit had again gotten himself captured. Robert had traded for the knight at a dear cost, in fact, far more than any liege should have sacrificed for a vassal's sake. And Gisburne's gratitude had come in open-faced lies, so imbecilic that only another imbecile should have believed them! De Rainault could have ordered that falsehood-spewing tongue cut out. Not that he hadn't enjoyed the “penalty” he'd chosen to enact upon that tongue instead, but he could see now: the undeserved attention had only encouraged Gisburne's notion of his own importance. God help them both if the knight had actually taken what he'd offered—  
      But there it was, Robert thought furiously, because Gisburne had no trouble seizing opportunity when he _alone_ was the beneficiary, did he? De Rainault had thought himself so clever, leaving on “pilgrimage” to Westminster far ahead of the mewling Prince John's arrival. Supporting the man politically and wishing to entertain him socially were two very different matters, and de Rainault had far preferred to feign interest in some saint's desiccated toenail than listen to John's wheedling greed; the Prince would no doubt steal every trinket in the castle, under pretense of accepting gifts from over-generous hosts. Let Gisburne deal with it, he'd thought with amused relief. And so Robert had taken up another gleaming chain — the golden deputy's emblem he'd once worn himself — and decorated the knight with the rank before departing. The Sheriff was still King enough in Nottinghamshire, and de Rainault had left behind a county that, save for the wolfsheads _alone_ , was kept well in order, its checks-and-balances carefully measured, the ledger in his mind no longer requiring a quill to record.  
      Gisburne had ruined that peaceful state quickly enough. The Sheriff couldn't decide what had been more galling: that the knight's incompetence had been evident enough for even _Hugo_ to recognise the danger and summon Robert home in a long-winded panic, or that the deputy had held Robin Hood in his grasp and let him slip away, in favour of shooting some costumed warlock prancing about in a stag's head! And even _that_ had been an act of tremendous wisdom, compared to what had come next!  
      Suddenly, the falcon's muffled screech pulled de Rainault from his thoughts. The Sheriff whipped his head about in startled anger and then shrieked for his servants to come at once. Of the gnarled falconer, he demanded that Ajax be returned to the mews. From the tiny woman, who somehow hefted wine-ewers without toppling over, he ordered a pitcher of anything strong that wasn't redolent of vinegar; when the girl tried to protest that she didn't know the taste of the lord's wines, he fixed her with a glare so fierce that she nearly fell over curtseying, then rushed from the room as if her girdle had caught flame. There was no sport in dealings with these ridiculous sheep! The servants called de Rainault _the Grendel_ when they thought him beyond hearing; they were so frightened of him that there was not an ounce of gumption remaining between them. Indeed, their wits had become so paralytic that a hundred of them could summon barely one bow at his approach. Better to be alone than surrounded by these wastrel English! And in that count, of useless craven servants, de Rainault included his traitorous idiot, his innocent-faced, devil-hearted _Gisburne_. Could the Sheriff truly still be counting his “deputy”'s misdeeds, without yet having finished?  
      But certainly he could, for in Robert's absence, Gisburne had also received the Sheriff's creditors from the Jewish district. And apparently, Gisburne's few remaining thoughts had been too paralysed by that turnip-faced girl to remedy the situation; administering poison and inventing some excuse for the Jews' disappearance, for example, would have been expedient enough. But instead, de Rainault'd had to deal with the vermin himself, the moment he'd returned from a wearying and dangerous journey. And Gisburne had simply _stood_ there, so hypnotised by the wench's poorly-crimped plaits that he'd done _nothing_ while that abomination de Talmont dared to insult the Sheriff in his own hall. De Rainault could give no quarter to those who resisted his authority; that an entire community had been let to flourish beyond his rule was unforgivable. The plan he'd concocted for their elimination had been unassailable, but because Gisburne was involved, it all came to naught, with the outcasts granted a leisurely escape in the company of those despicable wolfsheads!  
      Robert had not expected the comeuppance for Gisburne's numerous transgressions to fall into his hands so quickly, so easily. But a fortnight hence, the Earl of Huntingdon had sent a sealed formal request to his _friend;_ Robert had received the scroll, though snorted at the presumption of friendship. The two men occupied a roughly equivalent rank — owing to the Earl's birth and the Sheriff's position — but there was character to be accounted for, not to mention simple _taste_ , which should prevent his name from ever being mentioned in the same breath as Huntingdon's. The message had been borne by a young man of twenty-six years, and surely, Robert had not been like _this_ when he'd gained the Sheriffship — not so light in the eyes and the step, not so ready to smile and even to laugh. This fighter was one of the Earl's freedmen, disqualified from knighthood by birth, but certainly not capability. Robert had read the missive and immediately wanted to strangle Gisburne, upon noting the Earl's polite suggestion — phrased in that nobleman's way of not _quite_ suggesting — that, given the recent escapades of Nottingham's knight-in-residence, de Rainault might want to select for brightness over breeding, and utilise this able soldier who had risen as far as possible among the Earl's armed men.  
      So Robert had watched the newcomer drill and spar with the soldiers, and then placed him in the essential — though widely undesired — position of guard-captain. But if Ralph of Huntingdon had felt dismay in assuming such a dangerous post, he'd shown only pleasure and gratitude at the appointment. Granted the honour of dining with the Sheriff that evening, he'd comported himself with such gentility and charm as to make Gisburne a laughingstock by comparison. And after the knight had huffed off to bed over some minor disagreement, the Captain and the Sheriff had spoken long into the night. Still later, they had done far more than speak.  
      But unlike Gisburne's disgustingly flagrant bouts of _flagrante delicto_ , which usually ended with drunken slatterns tiptoeing from his chambers — as if the Sheriff hadn't already been wakened and angered by the sounds of it all — de Rainault had kept his affair subtle. He saw no gain in installing a favourite at his side, who could either unseat him from the Sheriff's chair or prove a target for an ambitious assassin. And he hadn't trusted Ralph, of course. A handsome and courteous man who sought out the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire — without once gazing upon the opulent furnishings of his chambers or the lavish clothing that fell from his shoulders — could only be storing up credit for some outlandish request to come. But, though he'd expected the inevitable fall of an axe, the Sheriff had damn well _enjoyed_ the wait, in the company of a man who'd understood obedience and respect and _opportunity_ , and wasn't running off or aiding outcasts and outlaws at every turn—  
      —and then, Robert had seen Ralph's corpse, lying in the motte of Castle Bellême.  
      He'd truly wanted to kill Guy, then. The Sheriff had looked into the stupid, self-satisfied face of that ungrateful villain who had taken his man, _his_ man, from him, and he'd remembered the notion of _wergild_ he'd learned from the Saxon fighters, and he'd considered his dagger while the knight spoke. Perhaps Gisburne had learned something at the very last, for he hadn't lied to the Sheriff; Ralph had indeed _fallen_. But the Sheriff had given orders to retrieve Huntingdon's vassal — had Gisburne really believed that the Earl would ignore Ralph's sudden disappearance? — and with the body, the guardsmen had brought a long coil of rope, intact at one end and neatly cut at the other.  
      His pretty, puerile parasite had already cost Robert too much. There were the “bonuses” due the guardsmen who'd rioted in disguise, lest they talk about what they'd seen and done in the Jewish district. There had been coin owed the de Talmonts after all, to keep their lips sealed about all that had transpired. There was the price of sending the King's share to him in Newark, keeping the silver closely guarded against the wolfsheads' resourcefulness. Hugo had even had the audacious, infuriating _nerve_ to demand remittance for the late hours of his priests — once in tending to the crazed (and probably drunk) Gisburne, who'd barged into the Abbey shrieking something about whispering shrubberies, and once in the purifactory rites that the Sheriff's fearful men had insisted upon before they would untie him and Gisburne.  
      His own wickedness _nothing;_ what the Sheriff had seen in that book had been the wickedness of the world, and no Latin droning could purge it. He could no longer clearly describe what had inveigled his mind, upon opening that jewel-encrusted tome. But there was something in it of Hugo crying at a dish of wriggling leeches, and the snake-like eyes of a Saxon traitor luring him down into sodden earth, and grey engraving upon a moss-growing grave, a _grave_...  
      His hand struck his empty wine-goblet and sent it flying. It landed with a clanging rattle and finally fell silent.  
      The air had turned oppressive in its wet heat; it made his breath sluggish, hung unpleasantly upon his skin. He could sense the low, visceral thrum of thunder in the distance.  
      Robert braced his hands upon the table and stared balefully into a night that seemed, he noted with rheumy satisfaction, to match his rising anger. Gisburne. Gisburne, Christ, was it _always Gisburne?!_ Had he been bewitched, to have taken the service of a complete stranger, when even those he'd known for years had proven themselves traitors? Why had he ever brought the rapacious dolt here, and then _kept_ him, against all common sense? He had killed far better men for far less! _Adamant!_ he screamed at himself. _You don't know its meaning, you ancient, pathetic weakling!_  
      And yet, he didn't know what a hard, resolute man ought to demand from Gisburne. There was no absolution the knight could beg, no peace-offering he could make against the strength of Robert's rage. The Sheriff of Nottingham had no idea what he might do when he reached his deputy's chambers. But he knew one thought for truth: the knight would _not_ sleep soundly in quarters this night. He had taken far, far too much from Robert de Rainault for that.  
      Reflexively, the Sheriff turned the ring upon his third finger back into place, as he remembered the many _others_ he had known, who had felt his loyalty to be no great thing.  
      Gisburne would _learn_ , de Rainault resolved, as he walked steadily towards the door separating the hall from the eastern corridor. He would learn the value of the golden livery chain that he sported with such vanity.  
      And he would pay the price of it, or he would die.


	7. Topace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings are destruction of property, physical assault, power imbalance, dubious consent, and explicit slash. Set still in Nottingham Castle, this chapter picks up a half-hour after _Gold (II)_ ends.

"I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,  
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire.... 

...I know no other way  
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,  
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,  
so close that your eyes close with my dreams."  
—Pablo Neruda, from _Sonnet XVII._

“The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it; it cannot be bought with pure gold.  
Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding dwell?”  
— _Job_ 28:19-20.

      Robert shivered, though the night was not cold, though the winds gusting round the castle parapets were humid and heated through with threat of storm. The wall-walk upon which he now stood was a shortcut, serving to link the eastern corridor with the northeast wing. He was near to Gisburne's chambers now, very near. But he'd stopped a moment when a flash on the horizon had caught his attention, and now watched the approaching tempest as it mounted the distant terrain. And then the image of a severed rope returned again to his thoughts, and though it was not cold, Robert de Rainault stood frozen in place upon the battlements, neither turning back nor moving on.  
      Once before, two years earlier, he'd tarried here, staring out over the countryside that sprawled out lazily and softly, as if in defiance of these menacing fortifications. Gisburne had been the object of his thoughts then, too, as the knight had lain in feverish delirium beyond de Rainault's command. On that black fourth day, the stench of foul unwashed flesh had nauseated the fastidious Sheriff, until finally he had relinquished Gisburne to the Church and the imminent defeat of death. He'd escaped the choking sickroom but lingered in the night air nearby for hours, unable to look upon the pallid knight any longer, unable to release him until the verdict was sure.  
      De Rainault swept away the memory, lifting his torch and bitterly looking down; even in the darkness, he could discern the distance from the merlons to the mud below, and the walls of Castle Bellême stood still higher. That Gisburne could expect a dignified and swift death was a mark of his master's mercy. But the knight had never spoken a word of gratitude for de Rainault's past vigilance, and the Sheriff hardly expected thanks now, upon informing his deputy that his last night on earth had come. In fact, the Sheriff knew he could expect little reaction at all; he could already envision Guy's flat, sullen expression, changing not one whit even as the knight was murdered. If Gisburne were any more indifferent to his own existence, he'd simply stop breathing. Which certainly would save de Rainault a lot of trouble...  
      Another flare of light caught Robert's attention as a torch-holding guardsman, walking his watch, came into view. Immediately he stood still and straight, and the Sheriff noted his fast obeisance with a twinge of pleasure.  
      “My lord.”  
      The Sheriff frowned; it would hardly serve morale among the decimated Nottingham ranks to witness this night's sentencing. “I want the northeast wing cleared. No soldiers or servants. No-one.”  
      The soldier nodded. “And the chambers, my lord? My lord of Gisburne—”  
      De Rainault's reply came swiftly enough to divide a flash of lightning from its resultant rumble of thunder. “Leave _your lord of Gisburne_ to his rest.”  
      “Aye, my lord.” The guard bowed, turned about-face, and a few moments later, Robert heard the calling of orders and the shuffling of feet from within.  
      When the sounds died down, Robert re-entered the corridor and swapped the fading torch he held for a fresh light from the wall, so roughly that hot oil spilled onto his hand. Cursing at the pain, and blazing with determination, he crossed the allure into the northeastern wing and strode immediately to the familiar corner door. And, since there was no reason to waste time with pointless politeness, he burst into Gisburne's chambers.  
      “Get up, you lying swine — _get up!_ ” he shouted, slamming the door behind him.  
      Gisburne woke in a wretched flailing of coverlets and consternation; it might have been humorous under far different circumstances, but Robert de Rainault was not laughing. The startled knight tried to stammer out a reply. “My lord, I—”  
      “Have you gone deaf as well as dumb?”  
      “No, m-m—” He was clutching the blanket over his body and trying to pull it loose while he spoke, but Gisburne had no talent for performing multiple tasks simultaneously; the covering stayed firmly in place, the chambermaid having apparently made up the bed with an excess of dutiful zeal.  
      The Sheriff glared scornfully at his underling. “I do not _care_ about your state of undress, Gisburne. You'll be lucky to sport anything except a _shroud_ after this night. Now _get up!_ ” To underscore his words, he tore the bedclothes away from the badly-shaken knight and savagely yanked him out of bed by the arm.  
      Gisburne stumbled onto bent legs and then picked himself up into an uncertain slouch. He was clad in grey hose, at least — though somehow, the fitted woolens looked more ridiculously lewd than nude flesh — and stood at center of the bare chamber, frightened and bewildered as a fallen angel. Robert noted angrily that the knight hadn't bothered to alter this depressing room in the last two years; really, the knight had made the lightness of his loyalty abundantly clear, in choosing meager guest-quarters at the first and then placing nothing personal there over six years of residence. But, to be sure, the Sheriff had known from the beginning that _Gisborne_ would flee any situation not to his liking. After all he'd done to teach the useless clod, it seemed that little had changed...  
      Suddenly, with the thought of _change_ , de Rainault realised that there could be a lesson even in this absurd catastrophe. He had wanted proof of Gisburne's allegiance, had he not? If he received the right responses, it might be possible to emerge from this room with something to show for the last day and a half, something more than a pair of youthful corpses.  
      The Sheriff circled widdershins round Gisburne, seeming to stare him down with sinister intent, and the disparity of their statures mattered little to the heights his rage had reached. “I want to know what you did to Ralph—”  
      “But—”  
      Faster than the knight could continue, de Rainault's hand found and pulled his dagger. “—and _if_ you dare lie to me, I will cut your throat where you stand. I will know how you killed him and _why_. But that will come later. Recorded by the torturers' scribes, if necessary.”  
      Gisburne swallowed hard. A boom of thunder sounded; they both felt a burst of wind from the window, whose wooden shutters lay stupidly secured open, and the knight held his arms in sudden chill.  
      “I'm told you quite reveled in the Sheriffship in my absence, Gisburne. Surely you've learned _something_ of statecraft, under my generous tutelage.”  
      Then it came, the blank, bitter mask that de Rainault so hated, the expression which transformed his faithless steward into a sullen foe.  
      Well, let Gisburne pout; de Rainault refused to be goaded or rushed. Instead, the Sheriff slipped his dagger back into its sheath with a disarming smile. “What sentence would you pronounce, Gisburne? In my place?”  
      For a moment, the shocked Gisburne forgot to be indifferent. “Wh—what?”  
      The Sheriff leaned against the writing desk, the sight of its well-stocked materials fuelling his anger, and he rested a hand upon the livery chain that lay there, tracing its links with languid fingertips. “A simple case. A vassal stands accused of unlawful sentencing — Hugo still hasn't forgiven you, you know — murder of the King's subjects—”  
      “But that was _your_ command!”  
      “—forsworn fealty, abduction, ravishment—”  
      “N-not...not ravishment, my lord.”  
      De Rainault raised a piqued eyebrow. “Indeed? An argument for clemency, perhaps. Though from you, that seems unlikely.” He tapped his fingers on the desk and kept an almost pleasant stare trained upon his deputy. “You know your crimes, Gisburne; I need hardly recite them. What should it be? Amputation? Evisceration? _Execution?_ ” He picked up the livery chain and pooled it in his hands, listening to its clatter as he poured it back and forth between his palms, silently thrilling to the dramatic thunder at the window. But Gisburne's answer was not forthcoming, and finally he lifted deep, intense eyes to his frantic deputy. “Well, Gisburne? I await your verdict.”  
      Gisburne slumped miserably, rubbing his weary features with his palms. “I—I'm trying to...to think, m—”  
      “Christ, we'll be here all night.”  
      Responding anger boiled up into the deputy's features, but Gisburne didn't dare speak protest.  
      So de Rainault waited, turning his gaze from the knight and towards the window. He watched the ruddy flushes of heat lightning as they seared the sky soundlessly, even thrilled to the sharper silver streaks that cut the horizon, brightly warning of the sounds to follow. When he heard Gisburne move, he looked back and saw defeat where defiance had been.  
      “My lord,” he began, and there was sincerity in the face that flickered with the wind-roving torchlight. "Would it be possible...that is, could I not...somehow..make amends?"  
      _Amends_. Only a man who wallowed in that mindless Christian muck could even consider such a thing. That Gisburne had actually suggested it was an insult not to be borne. De Rainault stared incredulously; too late, Gisburne realised that his hesitant offering had only made his danger more immediately dire. But before he could react, his master grabbed him and hauled him roughly towards the open window.  
      “Shall we find out, Gisburne?” de Rainault suggested. “I could pitch _you_ from the castle walls—”  
      “My lord—!”  
      “—and when your body breaks over the bailey's boulders, I'll endeavour to use your _intentions_ , to knit your bones together and force blood and breath back into you. _Then_ we'll see what your _amends_ are worth!”  
      “My lord, I ask forgiveness, I—”  
      “You'd ask nothing if you hadn't been _caught._ ” With a terrible growl, he shoved the knight away from him; another rush of wind caught the sweat beading on the back of his neck, cooling his skin but not his temper, as he advanced upon the man. “Oh, don't invent remorse now, Gisburne! You snatched up that slattern to wife and fled your office. When that failed, you took Bellême's jewels for yourself. And killed Ralph to silence him.” The wild-eyed man held up the golden chain to his deputy's terrified, unblinking stare, and then hurled it upon the desk; it arced across the wood and hit the floor. His voice became low and dire; the question he asked was not intended to be answered. “You have the patronage of the _High Sheriff of Nottingham,_ Gisburne. You have the _gall_ to repay me with betrayal and murder?”  
      His burning gaze flashed around the chamber, and at that moment, something snapped inside of Robert de Rainault. The absurdity of arguing generosity, or even common _decency_ , in a room of his castle, furnished by his silver, with the knight who lived by his provenance and worked by his order — the fury of it exploded from his hands as they seized upon the chair at the writing desk. He threw it aside and, with dark satisfaction, heard the old wood creak and crack as it hit the wall.  
      Gisburne gasped and stepped back.  
      “Have I not given you enough?!” And he no longer tried to rein in his wrath, as he tore the covers away from the mattress and threw them at the deputy, who caught them and held them to himself as if to shield his body. De Rainault then strew quills and vellum and shattered the inkwell upon the wall, and when his savage — and painful — kick proved unequal to the heavy desk, the Sheriff settled for hauling it away from the wall with such vehemence that it began to totter. Gisburne dropped the bedclothes and quickly moved to the desk, holding it stable until it settled; at the sight of him, de Rainault's anger found its true target, and the Sheriff's right hand seized Gisburne's throat, backing him into the stone wall with a breath-choking impact.  
      “I could strip you of your office and have you _whipped_ back to Normandy, Gisburne,” de Rainault hissed intimately. It was a terrifying invasion, and one that the deputy had likely never expected; a man of de Rainault's birth would never assault a nobleman. But then, there were many things a man of de Rainault's birth would never do, except that Robert de Rainault had done them, years before Nottingham Castle ever acquired a hot-headed steward with an attitude of maddening entitlement and defiance.  
      “Admit that you murdered Ralph.”  
      “My lord—” Thunder clamoured, very close now, and when Gisburne's eyes instinctively darted to the window, de Rainault didn't allow him to finish. Straining against the knight's weight, he pulled the deputy away from the wall and then pushed him back into it.  
      “Tell me why you broke your vow!”  
      “My—” Gisburne's protest was broken by another forceful impact.  
      “Explain why you _defy me_ at every _turn!_ _Tell me!_ You stupid, backstabbing, incompetent _whelp_ —”  
      "Be _silent!_ " Gisburne cried. His features twisted with affronted pride, a burst of blatant _feeling_ that de Rainault had never thought to see upon that expressionless face. Shock loosened the Sheriff's grip upon his deputy, and Gisburne seized the opportunity, breaking from his lord's restraining hand; his body seemed to move in advance of his mind, startling them both as he stepped forward, fists clenched. “'Sblood, be silent, _be silent!_ ” Fury fought fear in the knight's features as Guy came to a halt, then stood shaking with anger, defiant still — when he ought to have fallen to his knees and _begged_ mercy for his unpardonable offense!  
      Robert stared, stunned; he had not believed it possible to ever push the depthless deputy too far, and whether he should be affrighted or fascinated, he wasn't entirely certain. But righteous rage rose within him all too quickly; determined to deny Guy the satisfaction of silence, he gave voice to furious disbelief. “You _dare_ to threaten...!" And the Sheriff's hand flew, delivering a hard slap to chastise the knight's impertinence. The fair face snapped away, and de Rainault reached out, catching Gisburne's hair like a silken rein and forcing his head back. "Is _this_ what you want, Gisburne?" He closed his other hand around the knight's throat in demonstration, then explained the sinister implication. "The Earl arrives tomorrow. He wants his man, and the _truth._ Shall I tell him to hang you?”  
      Gisburne tried to pull away, but de Rainault kept a resolute grasp of his hair; the knight reacted with a panicked kick, which landed a solid blow to the Sheriff's knee. De Rainault reeled, dropping his hold with a howl of pain, as Gisburne grunted and held a hand against his smarting scalp. But Guy's minor, if accidental, victory was ephemeral indeed: the Sheriff had no intention of accepting such insult from his own vassal and, infuriated beyond restraint, he lunged at his deputy. Gisburne's answer was madness and misery, expressed in furious fisticuffs; his strength was formidable, but the fury behind his strikes made them clumsy, allowing Robert opportunity to anticipate - though not entirely avoid - them.  
      They scrambled and grappled, the blistering air stoking hot tempers to blaze still higher, until the sky itself tore open as though wounded; a frantic burden of rain burst upon the countryside, its insistence giving vehement vindication to the fighting men. Suddenly, a violent gust of wind left only one torch burning in the ravaged chamber, and the pair, already wet and wearied, struggled to focus upon flailing shadows. At last, the impatient Gisburne flung his considerable weight atop his lord, subduing him with sheer bulk. And when de Rainault's struggles were thus quelled, the knight stood and hauled up the smaller man, pulling with such force that the Sheriff's fine blue tunic ripped at the shoulder.  
      Sheets of water fell in gushing roars, and gusts of wind and needling water struck them both, as Gisburne pinned his master's body to the wall beside the window. “Why should I hang?" he shouted, gasping for breath enough to be heard. "You give the orders; this is _your_ doing! You brought me here—”  
      “ _My_ doing?!” the Sheriff rasped. “Abducting that woman...murdering my captain...I gave no such commands!”  
      “A blasphemous outcast!” Gisburne yelled. “And a sodomite! They deserved no better!”  
      De Rainault barked a mocking laugh in his deputy's face. “A sodomite?! Christ, Gisburne! Better slay a man than bed him? You're a fool—”  
      “It's a mortal sin!"  
      Robert pushed away the knight's distracted hold, then stepped away from the wall and lifted himself to his full height; his reply was scornful and incredulous. “I don't contract you to conduct a moral Crusade! If you tracked the outlaws with half the fervour you reserve for the _bedchamber_ —”  
      “If you gave me competent fighters! Instead of your _bedmates!_ ”  
      Robert cut off his deputy's priggish protests with a pruriently-pitched reply. "Ralph was quite _competent_ , Gisburne.”  
      Guy stared, his lips parting as his lord's meaning became clear, the crimson flush of his cheeks revealing embarrassment acute enough to dam rage. "Do not speak to me of that which is _against nature_ , my lord." His pretty warning was delivered with stiff indignance; it held all of the clipped conviction of long practice.  
      “Spare me a sermon, Gisburne." But a flash of memory moved him to eye his deputy with interest, and his gaze swept the knight head to toe, making his meaning clear. "I don't recall you speaking against it. When it was the _wine_ —”  
      “You filthy _liar!_ ” Gisburne roared. He seized de Rainault's hair, with the brutality he reserved for the most recalcitrant of the stables' beasts, and pulled him away from the window. De Rainault's arm moved in quick reply, but Gisburne's other hand caught the intended punch. Then he slammed a palm against the shorter man's chest and shoved him into a corner. The expression that tightened Gisburne's mouth was ugly and cruel, as the deputy clutched a handful of wet tunic with his free hand and broke open its remaining clasps with ungentle ease. Then Gisburne took up the rent cloth as a tether, yanking de Rainault's face close to his. "Is this the only _fealty_ you want, you...you...”  
      De Rainault had never lacked courage, though tact was another matter altogether; he smiled, baring teeth, and gave a goading insult from beneath Gisburne's grasp. "Just as well you refused. I'd sooner defile the _dead_ —”  
      Shrieking an oath, Gisburne shoved him away, insult and disgust flaring in his features. Robert saw Guy's fists again tense, and he glared back defiantly, readying another volley of words, resolved to hold his own by the only means he could.  
      A blast of thunder shook the stones; Gisburne jumped as if rebuked, as though the ferocious sound commanded him cease. The vassal stared at his liege, blinking dumbly, and held up his hands that still tensed with angry readiness to fight. Realisation — of his deeds, his doom — seemed to seize him then, its force greater than any blow he'd struck. Horrified despair dragged down his mouth and eyes, and Gisburne stumbled as he stepped away from his lord. As he'd done in the great hall, Guy backed away fearfully, as though retreating from a king's reckoning; the edge of the alcove struck him sharply, and he sagged heavily upon the window-seat. Wind-blown rainwater cascaded over his body, but Gisburne didn't bother to wipe it away or even to move. De Rainault remained motionless, watching the knight suspiciously, and for several moments, the only sounds between them were their gasps for breath, and the furious rushes of the storm.  
      “Gisburne,” the Sheriff said, trying to regain his composure, to summon reason and resolve from his blow-addled brain, scarcely recalling the original purpose of his entrance. But somehow, it all mattered far less than it had; he no longer wanted expiation, or even explanation. He wanted justice and solitude, needed resolution and rest, not this unreined, confounding madness in the depths of a storming night.  
      “The Earl arrives in the morning,” de Rainault reminded them both. “You'll leave for Huntingdonshire with him.” The Sheriff had wearied beyond further argument; he had fought this same battle too many times, striving after the loyalty of a man who, even in fear of his life, had none to display. He could only wash his hands of this failure, and let Gisburne face the consequences from which he'd too long been sheltered, and so he made one final oath to his vassal. “I'll intercede for you. It'll be quick.”  
      Rivulets of rain trailed over the knight's shoulders and arms and dropped to the rushes beneath his feet. Gisburne stared at the floor, and remained still and silent; he only sank his face into open hands and nodded, hopelessly acknowledging his liege's final order.  
      The Sheriff could say nothing more, and he knew he would be a fool to remain, sealed in this chamber with a knight turned to traitorous insanity, who held a head's height over him. But some strange emotion pressed a peculiar pain upon him. He suddenly recalled a ragged tent sunk in sodden mire, barely protecting the men who slept within it, who lay limply in the attitude of death.  
      And it was still raining. The wretched English rain.  
      The Sheriff moved to the door, and had set his palm to the handle when he remembered the dark corridor. But he considered the lone torch remaining and hesitated; to take it now would be to leave Gisburne in stark darkness.  
      Then a voice called to him, softly. “My lord...please...don't...”  
      For a moment the resolute Robert faltered; his hand slipped from the door. The words were human, and humble, heavy with a feeling he had never heard nor expected from the pitchless Gisburne.  
      He knew he should depart. He must not listen, lest he again be drawn into this madness. But he turned back to look, only once, before he left.  
      Gisburne slumped against the stone, his hands braced upon his thighs. Robert regarded him, following the familiar lines of the knight's body; after several moments unbroken by the slam of a door, Guy hesitantly lifted his head. His eyes were wide expressions of his plea moments before; he met his lord's gaze and held it. Then slowly, as though mesmerized, Guy rose from his seat, the wide window framing him against the tempest beyond.  
      And a double flash of lightning, like a heartbeat, set the heavens alight, bright as the day and then bright as the blinding sun. In that moment the knight shone, illumined like a shining sword. His glittering eyes were two topaces set beneath a brow of silver, and the water falling over his skin was the streaking lightning sinking into the tender earth—  
      — _a man of lightning flesh with inlaid jewels for eyes._  
      The vision hit the unprepared Robert deep in the gut, bowing him low with shock.  
      He'd resolved long ago that his old, foolish dream had been some boyhood fantasy. For books contained maps, and peasants' stories told of gods, and he'd seen boats rocking in the harbour; there were a thousand possible explanations for all of it, surely...  
      But he'd been a boy of eight years when his dreaming began. And Guy of Gisburne hadn't yet been born.  
      In the periphery of his awareness, he sensed Gisburne moving warily towards him.  
      _Leave me alone!_ he thought dully. It wasn't possible. No god could be so irrelevant, so irreverent. So _idiotic_. Not even the one that Gisburne worshipped, who condemned thrusts with the prick and not the sword!  
      Gisburne knelt carefully next to him. “My—” Then he fell quiet. Of course he did; he couldn't well address _my lord_ when he expected to be thrown to the Earl of Huntingdon in the morning. But still he reached out a hand, without speaking.  
      De Rainault saw the approaching touch and impatiently pushed it away. Then he looked up and saw that stupid, sullen, _familiar_ mask fall over his deputy's face. _Christ, Gisburne, not that—_  
      It was a foolish ejaculation, surely, for a man who should no longer believe in either.  
      But Herne, _Herne...the lightning_ —  
      Robert had never wondered if any reason save ridiculous whim had placed Guy in his service, nor considered that one god's vengeance for a broken commandment might violate another's ordain. But it was neither fear nor defiance that moved him; he only knew that his hands must _know_ this man, must trace and so make real that glimpse of shining flesh. He groped roughly for Gisburne's shoulder; the knight stiffened and moved to retaliate against the expected strike, but Robert curved his fingers, tightening his hold. His other hand went to Guy's back, sliding his palm over the warm skin slicked by rain, clutching to himself any part of his vision he could reach. Guy's eyes, still jewel-like in the torch's dim glow, grew wary; misery and hope fought for expression on his face. His hand ventured to his master's cheek, approached but did not touch, and for a small eternity Guy remained still. But whatever battle clashed within Sir Guy of Gisburne, it flamed out like a flash of lightning, and Robert strained to stay upright as Guy grasped him, taking greedy grips of hair and flesh and cloth; he responded with equal, eager appetite.  
      Their clumsy caresses grew bolder then, escalating dares issued and met in a wild relief of touching, of _finally_ touching. With grappling hands they pulled each other to standing; they tugged open Robert's belt and pulled the broken tunic and blouse from his shoulders, leaving fine brocade and leather and linen to rest upon the dampened floor, and Guy's heavy stare was a mantle falling over his lord's body, its drape not of power but desire. Their arms locked each other into a feverish captivity, pressed lips and groins changing the duel they'd danced all these years: scathing tongues now seductively soft, prim virtue sharpened and ready for a different sort of sparring.  
      At last they broke the final rule that divided them; together they stumbled to Guy's austere bed, master and servant enacting their most illicit scheme yet. Guy pulled his lord on top of him and kissed him violently, as though crushing a wanton wine from their lips. A ragged groan tore from Gisburne's throat, and he pushed the length of his body against his lord's. But Robert lifted himself, to scour with devouring eyes the man lying aroused beneath him, and as he looked — having seen the knight's nudity many times but never, _never_ like this — something hungry and primal awoke within him, and then it no longer sufficed to be merely the knight's lover.  
      He shifted his weight off of Gisburne and, though Guy cried out and reached for him, he lowered his head and trailed a tantalising mouth over limbs that chilled and stirred with anticipation. Gisburne had to be his. _His_. He would _make_ the knight know that: another _lesson_ to his protégé. And so, against Guy's groaning pleas, in spite of the beautiful — Herne, _beautiful_ — body that enticed Robert with tremors and thrusts, the Sheriff slowly, maddeningly advanced upon his knight, who starved for the sating grasp that Robert refused him.  
      Instead he explored every inch of his vassal with infinitesimal patience, making every touch a claim upon _his_ Gisburne. He glided delicate fingertips over the tenderness of Guy's upraised arms. His hands teased shivers from the knight's sides and flanks; his mouth tasted the taut chest and slipped down to the stomach, and Robert smiled as sweet, firm muscle rippled beneath his lips, his searching kiss that conquered his deputy, part by part. Only when Guy's breaths became sobs of erotic agony did Robert give a moment's relief, pushing a hand beneath the waist of Guy's clinging hose and untying the lacings. Then he tugged at the garment, skimming the knight's tender flesh with the coarse cloth before finally tossing it aside.  
      The bewildered Guy lay deep in a lustful trance, aware of nothing save his lord's touch. And curse them both for fools, but Robert could never leave well enough alone. He stroked up the knight's fine, strong thighs and smiled archly, as Guy writhed beneath the torturous attentions. “A 'sodomite,' Gisburne?” Robert queried softly.  
      Guy lifted his head from the pillow, thunderstruck by the memory of his own disgusted words. “My lord, I didn't—!” Robert could see the panic, the confusion there; those few fearful moments were punishment enough for his ravenous knight, he decided.  
      So he took his vassal's slender hips into his hands. “No more of that, Gisburne,” he warned.  
      “No...no, my lord!” came Guy's rash reply, his eyes flashing with unthinking need. “Please...”  
      Robert gazed knowingly at Guy, looking lasciviously from between the knight's parted thighs. Then the Sheriff parted his lips and lightly primed the weapon that needled the knight with lust, that waited _en garde_ for a sweet opponent's touch.  
      Gisburne choked on his own cry; his hands clutched at Robert's shoulders. “My...my lord...”  
      Robert kept his deep brown eyes trained on Guy, eyes that shone with seductive command. “Say it, Gisburne. Tell me.”  
      Guy turned his face in embarrassment, but Robert reached up a hand and pushed back the averted cheek. There was a penalty to be paid, and the Sheriff of Nottingham intended to collect. After six years of waiting, of _wanting_ , he would hear the knight _finally_ accept what had been offered him — or, so help them both, Robert would walk out of this room now.  
      Gisburne didn't immediately speak, but his reason was clear; even naked, erect, and shuddering at Robert's touch, he still managed to flush bashfully beneath Robert's gaze. The Sheriff closed his eyes and kissed the very surface of his deputy's need, a quick offering of incentive. “ _Tell me_ ,” he sighed.  
      Guy cried out, “I...I want.....please, my lord....”  
      “Please _what?_ ”  
      The knight trembled, overwhelmed by a passion that shamed and aroused him in equal measure; finally, he relented, fumbling for the words he could barely speak. “Kiss me...my..my c-cock. Put your mouth on me...please— _God!_ ”  
      Robert obeyed at once, and yet, they both knew who truly obeyed whom. The Sheriff's mouth gripped and released the hot organ that jutted from his deputy's groin, again and again while Gisburne watched, stunned by desire, struggling not to _force_ his sex upon that eloquent mouth. De Rainault caressed every swell of flesh and tasted every drop of welling fluid, relished every moan and wordless cry. But when Guy reached down, filling eager hands with chestnut hair, Robert stopped and pushed the deputy's wrists firmly down, resuming his ministrations only when Guy lay jessed by obedience.  
      Robert de Rainault had no intention of succumbing to the soppy caresses that constituted intercourse with some slatternly maid. He claimed his Gisburne with every languid roll of the tongue, every pull and push of the fist. And he reveled in his conquest, as his free hand bared his own cock and began massaging it by the same rhythm. Robert relished the sensual tension beneath his suck, the delicious quiver of the organ he grasped, and Guy's sharp breaths grew shorter and quicker as he continued. Guy was thrusting now, straining against the lash of the tongue, and Robert seized them both in rougher grips, his mouth keeping Guy wet and wanting.  
      His eyes flickered up and then locked with Guy's; his vassal's gaze was panicked and bright. “I...I can't—” the knight panted.  
      Robert commanded them both in a single gasp. “Let it come...”  
      And his mouth again sank over Gisburne's cock, granting the final heavy strokes that pulled seed and ecstasy and a high, helpless cry from _his Gisburne_. As Guy whimpered and arched with release, triumph and lust burned together in Robert's blood; the Sheriff stroked himself quickly then, stoking frenzied desire until he shuddered, consumed by the same death he had dealt his deputy.  
      Finally they fell into an enforced ease of unbinding muscles and racking breaths; Robert gasped in spent, incredulous relief, and felt Gisburne beneath him doing the same. Finally his heart quieted, and his ears cleared enough to again hear the rain.  
      _Gisburne_ , came his only thought, again and again.  
      But it was a chant that Robert could not speak. Instead he mounted his deputy and lay upon him, still and sated, his arms keeping the knight captive and close. He breathed hungrily, taking in the sweat of their exertions, that pungent scent mingling with the storm's exhalation of petrichor and the burning smoke of a sputtering torch. Perhaps Gisburne was accustomed to sending his women away after enjoying them, for he too was quiet and hesitant. But at last, Robert felt a hand come to rest on his head, an arm wrapping his waist in a welcome weight. And they fell together into a battle-wearied sleep, exhausted by the frenzied consummation of a hatred so intense that somehow, somewhere, it had crossed a line which neither man had ever drawn.  
      It was not quite dawn, when Robert de Rainault awoke and realised that he was no longer entangled with his deputy. He lay alone, and blinking confusedly, he lifted his head from the cold cushion and looked around the chamber. His eyes came to rest upon his Gisburne, who had again donned hose and now stood near the window, holding a plain shirt up to the small light afforded him. With a hunter's practised grace, Robert rose and went to stand beside him. But the knight jumped when his shoulders were taken, and even in the dim morning, Robert could see the face that he turned away, guilt-ridden and miserable.  
      _God_ , de Rainault thought wearily, though at this point he was uncertain exactly _which_ deity he sought with the wretched plea. Wordlessly he picked up his shirt and ruined tunic, his belt and its secure weapon, dressing himself with the military efficiency that Gisburne's clumsy hands seemed currently incapable of employing. Robert tied the cold, still-wet brocade securely at his neck, as well as he could, and took a deep breath to settle his nerves. The wind was fresh, wet, cool, but he felt suddenly overheated and tired, and older than even the trees, whose fragrance of torn leaves embittered the air.  
      He stepped in front of Gisburne and held up his palms in a gesture of peace that seemed strange, even to him; except with his squawking fledglings, he was never so soft, never so sloppily unsteeled. But he pulled the taller man's shirt into place and tied the delicate lacings little by little, while Gisburne kept his gaze averted in shame. De Rainault could feel his own face settling into lines of old disappointment, but more the fool him, for ignoring what any man possessed of a mind might have known.  
      To the knight, he spoke reassurance. “I ordered everyone away before coming here. The entire wing is empty.”  
      Gisburne seemed to relax a little, but then tensed again as a new thought entered his mind, apparently worse than the last. “You have what you wanted?” He spit out his next remark, aiming the words at his own feet. “A _boy_ to insult, and...and tease...”  
      Of course. _Of course_. How could de Rainault not have expected this, from _Gisburne_ of all men? “Do you think I would _boast_ about this, Gisburne? About _you?_ ” Robert retorted halfheartedly.  
      “No, you wouldn't,” Guy said. “You'll just...you'll—whenever it suits you—”  
      “I'm not your Christ, Gisburne,” de Rainault snapped, with more bile than he intended. “I don't seek sheep for the sacrifice!”  
      “And I am not...like... _you!_ ” cried Gisburne in a miserable stammer. He turned his back to his master and gathered up his hauberk from the floor. De Rainault wanted to strike him, but then he saw a heaving shudder pass through the strong shoulders, as though the knight stifled a sob. And he could do nothing save depart, with whatever dignity he could salvage.  
      As he approached the door, he gave the deputy a final instruction. “Court robes, Gisburne.”  
      The linked metal clattered indelicately as Gisburne dropped it, and the look that he turned to de Rainault changed quickly from grievous to grave.  
      The insults leveled at de Rainault then came only from his own thoughts; how could he not have guessed the deputy's incentive? Had he truly been so much a lust-addled buffoon, to believe that Gisburne would bed him willingly, might seek pleasure rather than a simple pardon? His voice was hoary and foreign to his own ears as he spoke again. “I'll think of something to say to him, Gisburne. Your duty is to remain _silent_. And bow your head with _respect_ when the Earl mentions his recently-departed _sodomite_.” Anger rose too quickly within him. “Perhaps you can manage that!”  
      He escaped into the hall and shut the door behind him swiftly. Then he held his shoulder as though wounded, keeping the broken tunic in place as he strode back to his quarters with pathetic poise. And when he realised that the hay-sweat-chypre scent of the knight still clung to his sleeves and shadowed his movements, he kept his arms rigid as he walked.  
      Robert entered his own chamber and surveyed it with frosty disdain. He unclasped his belt, removed the blue garment, and threw both onto his neatly turned-down bed. He thought of nothing, and when _other_ thoughts threatened to intrude, he caught up his belt again and pulled the dagger from it. He stared hard at the shining weapon; again and again, the word _adamant_ tumbled through his thoughts like a chant, steeling his resolve while giving him a new reason to despise all rejoinders of virtue. For in the Latin tongue, _adamant_ resembled _adamare_ , one providing the obvious remedy to the other; it was wisdom he'd ignored, in favour of mystical rot.  
      Then the Sheriff threw the knife back on the bed impatiently and summoned his chamber servants with a loud, reedy shout. When the women arrived, he allowed them to cleanse his limbs with lavender water and tend to his hair, then rub powdered spices wetted with oil of clove into his skin. They silently ministered to his bruises before touching sweet oil to his wrists and neck, and when he curtly instructed them to bring him court robes, they chose his clothing, as well, dressing him in deep purple overlaid with black. He held out his arms, and looked over his dark, sombre raiment, and wondered if they somehow knew that the Earl came to claim the dead. Then he examined his appearance in his mirror and, turning back to the maids, he issued a final shocking order, instructing them to make it known that any servant found in Gisburne's bed henceforth would be hanged.  
      He was thus soothed, even revenged, and a strong malmsey livened his blood through his lips when, a candlemark later, he and Gisburne stood in the great hall, feigning a distance that neither felt, to receive the Earl of Huntingdon upon his arrival.


	8. Apples

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings. This chapter picks up in fall 1201, in Nottinghamshire.

" _La Tchête dé l'houmme, tout coumme les pommes tchi tchaient d'un clyîn  
dg'yi, a louochi nos tchoeurs. Êden n'est pus connu._  
(The Fall of man, just like the apples which fall in the blink  
of an eye, has shaken down our hearts. Eden is no longer known.)”  
—Geraint Jennings, from _Apollon et Daphné_

"But God gave us life, did He not? And God gave us desire, did He not? And God gave us taste, did He not? And who else but God made the damned apples in the first place? So what else is life for but to tassste the fruit we desire?...  
All this worshiping, morning, noon, and night. It's 'Oh Praise Him, Oh Praise Him, Oh Praise the Everlassssting Lord.' I don't call that omnipotent. I call it pathetic...He raises you and Adam on this diet of myths while all the really interesting information is locked up in these juicy apples."  
—David Mitchell

"Essence of winter sleep is on the night,  
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.  
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight  
I got from looking through a pane of glass  
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough  
And held against the world of hoary grass.  
It melted, and I let it fall and break.  
But I was well  
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,  
And I could tell  
What form my dreaming was about to take."  
—Robert Frost, from _After Apple Picking_

      His fingertips were dry; the shimmering glass felt smooth and damp beneath them. A limpid light streamed around his hand as he traced down the window, leaving trails of cool moisture. The fog, the dragon's breath, was just starting to clear — an excellent omen for the day, he mused, as well as proof of the stupidity in trusting such auguries. A sliver of rising sun struggled through the haze, its shine more silver than gold, and his right hand played idly with its wavering reflections in the pane.  
      “When?”  
      The reply seemed both an answer and an accusation. “Summer, my lord.”  
      He inhaled, prepared another question, but the office door suddenly opened.  
      “My lord Sheriff. My lord of Gisburne. All’s prepared.”  
      The Sheriff nodded, then slipped his palm from the slick surface and impatiently waved the youth away. Only after the untimely arrival had scuttled off did he hold up his left hand, gripping a piece of vellum crushed into the palm.  
      “We'll discuss this after court. Go check my saddle. It was loose last trip; I'll not be unhorsed by incompetence.”  
      The knight turned his face to the floor, then vanished after the servant.  
      When Robert de Rainault again stood alone, he struck his open hand hard upon the transparent surface. The window clattered unconcernedly in its strong stone frame; freezing dew wetted the page smashed into it. He breathed cold air, allowed the bite of it to chill and compose him. At last, he looked away from the clearing view of Nottingham's vales and threw the message onto his crowded work table. He dimly noticed smeared ink, but the ruined note had already done its work.  
      Determined to accomplish his with equal efficacy, he eyed his mug, still half full from the morning meal. The stand behind him held some fine liquors; he grabbed the closest flask and gripped its stopper between his teeth. It opened easily and poured quickly, and when he held an empty bottle and a full cup, he deftly replaced the decanter. The resultant drink was quickly quaffed, and the flavour of pear _eau de vie_ blending with small-beer was soothing in its repugnance. Like most medicine, the draught was distasteful, but effective.  
      And thus, by the time he emerged into the courtyard, the Sheriff of Nottingham was invigorated, immune to the sharp shear of the northern wind. He pushed away the soldier offering him assistance and tugged himself into the well-set saddle girding his mare. A squire had already brought Gisburne his sword and smoothed his cape nicely over the backside of that blasted stallion; now the youth began to arrange the cloak which the Sheriff impatiently cast behind him.  
      “Careful, you idiot,” de Rainault snarled, more from habit than genuine pique. But the young man was nimble in his work, and not a thread of the soft wool was disarrayed. The Sheriff looked over the provisions, the loaded cart prepared as ordered, the knight fresh-faced and expectant, and nodded his acceptance.  
      Then he lifted a hand in signal, and hooves and feet began to strike, wheels to break free of the bailey earth's ruts. Ten foot soldiers fanned out around the two mounted officials, preceding them across the courtyard and through the raised portcullis. Following them was a heavy cart, its contents lashed securely together, drawn by two plodding but strong workhorses; another five soldiers completed their procession.  
      The first mile was always the roughest; by now Robert sat the horse as well as any lord, but had never cared for the creature’s bobbing gait, nor for the maceration of his thighs and backside by it. The azure sky, the golden-leaved trees, even the chartreuse hues of parched grass were all pleasant enough, when they weren’t popping up and down in his field of vision. He blinked quickly to dispel the haze of the liquor and then squeezed his eyes shut for a moment; the brief inattention unsettled his balance and nearly set him tilting on the horse’s back. Inflamed by both intoxicant and imprecation, he clutched a handful of pale mane and looked again at the fields rolling gently away from the road. They’d twenty-five miles to cover, and he refused to spend that distance in awkward silence, Gisburne’s wretched timing be damned.  
      “It really is a most ridiculous mode of travel, Gisburne,” the Sheriff drawled, continuing his thoughts aloud. “One wonders which man first pulled himself onto a four-legged creature’s backside and began issuing commands. Likely insane.”  
      The observation, predictably, gained the young deputy’s attention. “Nonsense, my lord! A good horse is the swiftest way to travel.” His face hinted at a smile as he patted the glossy hide of his ridiculous destrier. “And the best.” Then he surveyed their surroundings, taking in the landscape with distinct disapproval. “We’d cover ground faster if the roads were better.”  
      “I can’t control the weather, Gisburne,” de Rainault pronounced evenly. “Contrary to common delusion.” His deputy glanced over, surprised by the odd reply, but the Sheriff fell back into silence. This year, the weather was a testy topic as well as a dull one; de Rainault allowed the subject to pass and said nothing more for a small while.  
      For a vicious drought had stricken the shire, covering the roads – and the fields – in dust too easily stirred. It had started months before, after a violent spring storm: _that_ night, the antipathy and ardour of which neither Sheriff nor deputy had spoken since. That tempest had done more than sunder the uneasy peace between them; it had flooded most of the arable plains of Nottinghamshire, ripping the orchards' blooms from their branches and crushing the tender creepers of low-lying vines. Worse, it inundated Nottingham Castle with desperate farmers seeking aid, as though de Rainault had no more urgent task at hand than wringing out the kerchiefs of wailing peasants. He certainly had not been appointed High Sheriff by some esoteric gift for weather-magic, and so irritated had he been by the provocation of his mercurial temper that he initially failed to recognise the opportunity offered him by every ragged visitor. The serfs awaited his audience, gossiping in their own language, and when they reached him, they heard only platitudes, with suggestions of better ways to spend their Sheriff-whining hours. But from them, he overheard news, and the most important piece of their knowledge was the sudden, inexplicable, and dire disappearance of Robin Hood.  
      Oh, de Rainault would have chosen any word save “dire” to describe the circumstance, but terror set the peasants' wagging tongues a-tremble, as they spoke of omens that surely betokened some terrible fate for the Hunter’s whelp: the fruit harvests ravaged, rainclouds vanished from blazing skies, crops struggling under a merciless sun. A curse had fallen over the land, they declared, apparently believing their own stupidity as they fretted over the mortal peril surely facing Herne's Son. Yet, as the summer passed without any “omens” of outlaw activity, Robert began to take more careful notice of the farming-folk’s fables. One yarn spun out that the outlaws had ventured into Calverton village, to test the people's loyalty; shunned by the villagers, they'd retreated back into the forest, never again to return to the places of men. A wilder tale insisted that Robin and his followers had traveled many miles to push a troupe of devil-riders back to the underworld, from which they'd dared rise to torment the good people of England. All of the stories were worked from identical thread: the desire for Robin Hood – the _people's hope_ – to return.  
      But the Sheriff’s hopes were kindled, and further fueled by his people’s rising despair, when the summer session ended, and for the first time in nearly a decade, his men tallied the croplands and collected assessments without hindrance. Laden carts journeyed unmolested on the roads linking Newark and Nottingham. Provisions reached the castle without any expensive “diversions.” And the Sheriff dared to place wary faith in fickle fortune, wondering if his old enemy had gone the way of all forest creatures — perhaps even now was rotting somewhere in a pile of woodland filth, with birds pecking dirges on his bones. It seemed deliciously apt for the forest-god's son to end as a pile of fertilizer, and the thought amused Robert all the more for the pathetic brevity of the “King of Sherwood”'s reign; six years was a pitiful career for an outlaw supported by followers and hidden by the thickets of Sherwood Forest. Hood's predecessor, Adam Bell, had enjoyed twenty before slipping into obscurity, and no-one had been foolhardy enough to shore up that ruffian's reputation with the cult of any god.  
      A quarter-century now Robert had occupied _Angleterre_ , and never in those interminable years had the English sheep failed to follow some madman shepherd: Bell, then Hood – and if Robin i'the Hood had indeed perished in Sherwood's depths, then there would surely emerge another miscreant seeking fame from that wildwood crown. Such had been Robert's sour thoughts, as he’d stared into the stone-stupid visages of his lamenting serfs — men no doubt awaiting rescue from that populist pagan poppet — until he'd suddenly realised the chance created for _him_ by the spring's “tragedy.” The Sheriff's eyes had shone that day, as he listened to the farmers with sympathy; he'd held his chair, and his attention, for all who came to him, the time squandered in such audiences be damned. In the weeks that followed, the crafty Sheriff invited the men of different guilds to dine at his table, hearing out their complaints instead of putting them off to the hundred-courts. He’d even anticipated troubles _before_ the wailing peasants could reach his doors — the approaching poor harvests, for instance, against which the Sheriff had magnanimously sent fruit, grain, and cloth to the villages from Nottingham’s stores, demanding nothing in return. Thus, all who'd believed the Sheriff a dourly-disposed despot had been given a full and prosperous autumn to reconsider such folly. And Robert intended to reap reward, in either case: if “the people’s hero” never resurfaced, then the Sheriff's chattel would eventually realise the wisdom of cooperating with the law that bound them; if Hood dared return to Nottinghamshire, he might discover the people not so easily swayed to the seditious treachery of “Herne” as they'd once been.  
      “My lord,” Gisburne ventured, interrupting de Rainault’s plotting, “may I ask who will be in attendance?”  
      “No,” de Rainault answered curtly. Then he snickered at Gisburne’s expression and granted the gullible knight a response. “It won’t be much different than the hundred-court. Lacking that institution's mangy sort of entertainment — far fewer peasants, you see. Mostly clerics. Priests, a smattering of _abbots_.” At that he glared ferociously at Gisburne, but had to tightly grip the reins and turn his eyes back to the road, before the change of perspective could topple him. “The Earl and the Bishop, if they can be bothered, though they usually appear only at Easter-tide. The reeves of the surrounding estates, or their coin, in their stead. The castle's lord, of course; he'll meet us on arrival.”  
      Gisburne nodded; he sat straight and tall, as though to show off his command of his beastly mount. “And what sort of man is he, my lord?”  
      “Flightier than a feather-headed girl,” snorted de Rainault. “The sort who’d order a fire to warm your chamber in midsummer and then marvel that you slept poorly. Just accept anything the fool offers you; he’ll forget it a few moments later anyhow. And let him do most of the talking. We’ll have only two days to endure.” He didn’t look at Gisburne, not wanting to witness the knight’s satisfaction at the brevity of their sojourn.  
      “Two days?” asked Gisburne carefully.  
      “I’ve work to do.” _Actual_ work, and not the frustration of fussing over a frantic flock, whilst they scrambled over acreage and screeched over the budget that he’d already designed to perfection weeks ago. Beneath his layered clothing, Robert started to sweat; exertion and liquor burned his eyes. He passed a hand over his face and then stared at the path ahead of them, striving to focus on pleasanter thoughts — such as the reasonable probability that no ambush awaited his entourage. “We'll feed and rest tonight. Court in the morning — with Mass first, of course, a small nap before the proceedings.”  
      It was too easy to nettle the knight sometimes; this time he did glance at Gisburne, and felt a tight little laugh shake him at the man’s stunned expression. “Oh, relax, man. I’m hardly going to doze on my feet like a horse. Christ, you’ve no taste for jesting even on holiday.”  
      “ _Particularly_ on a holy day, my lord,” announced Gisburne pompously. “A time for reverence.”  
      “A time for strutting,” de Rainault countered. “De Byrkin's sponsored church renovations for the last three years. It isn’t _devotion_ he means to demonstrate.”  
      But Gisburne’s hooded stare moved de Rainault to sigh and drop the matter altogether. The ride was far more tolerable when his deputy wasn't reeling from implicit atheism, and he'd little desire for his only accompaniment to pout for the next twenty miles. Oh, there were the foot-soldiers who escorted them, but that lot formed more a _panoply_ than _company_ in Robert's mind. The companion who rode alongside him was the only man who merited his attention and, though Gisburne was no less stoically guarded than usual, he brightened as the party passed into Sherwood Forest, weaving between a small stand of trees to pick up the narrowing road amidst a tangle of vegetation.  
      “A pleasing lack of outlaws, my lord,” Gisburne observed, smirking.  
      From wary habit, the Sheriff’s eyes flickered up to the boughs, but saw there only branches and winding vines. “Yes, Gisburne,” came his vague reply.  
      And that was precisely the problem, he thought, keeping whatever wits about him still remained. By now Gisburne had gratefully accepted the probability of Robin Hood’s demise, but the Sheriff's own bitter experience whispered that “divinities” seldom wearied of tormenting their mortal pets. Why should Herne’s accursed offspring escape the Hunter’s traps so easily? De Rainault allowed that the wolfsheads could have failed their grandiose scheme, that they might well be dead by now; all the same, it cost him nothing to keep surreptitious vigilance upon the woodland as the journey continued.  
      But the hours passed in surprising peace, with the only sights those of a sylvan fall. Colourful leaves jittered high above him, and fiery discards crackled beneath the horses’ hooves, and the Sheriff slowly revived to the clear forest air. The sun climbed higher, its light falling through high branches in golden cascades, though it brought less warmth than pageantry to the ride. De Rainault spoke as he was given cause, but mostly kept a casual silence, letting the spirits he'd imbibed keep his spirits light and his thoughts few.  
      It was mid-morning when the party emerged from Sherwood and returned unmolested to the open road, and the Sheriff marveled; for eight years he'd not dared such a shortcut, in his own shire. As they climbed the gentle height of a hilltop, their destination came into view, a dark and brooding slash against the calm horizon, and de Rainault pointed it out with a sneer.  
      “Laxintone Castle, Gisburne. The new favourite of King John.”  
      Gisburne scoffed dismissively. “Doesn't look like much.”  
      The Sheriff grinned at the facetious remark; Laxintone was taller, better fortified, and far stronger in both position and numbers than Nottingham. He'd coveted the stronghold for years, but the ruling family had kept a stranglehold over it for the last century, and no amount of angling or bribery could pry them from it. Then de Rainault had discovered that King John planned to enclose a second bailey on Laxintone’s grounds and rebuild its looming shell keep in stone. The castle could expect frequent royal visits for funding and supervision, and then even lengthier royal stays for John to show off his work to fawning guests; the Sheriff had thus promptly withdrawn his interests from Laxintone, and looked upon Nottingham and its moldering walls with renewed appreciation.  
      The two riders carefully guided their mounts down the hill; the cart's creaking wheels followed, and the Sheriff gestured to the surrounding town's sights – precious few, unless one counted the serfs as scenic, which he certainly did not. A mill stood a sleepy watch over the thatched peasant dwellings, and the peaked arches of Saint Michael the Archangel's held an austere charm, for all that it was a _church_ and thus as much beneath de Rainault's notice as the serfs. The castle rose in their view, closer and closer still until they reached the bridge spanning the motte. Slowly they crossed, the men three a-breast, then deputy, then Sheriff. De Rainault passed the shadowy portal of the portcullis, and when the gate-passage widened to reveal sky and sun, he sighed disdainfully at the usual chaos: the animal spectacle of the Michaelmas festival, cluttering up Laxintone's oblong courtyard. But this term, it was not at all difficult to ignore the music-makers, vendors, jugglers, even Gisburne's pathetic perusal of the women-folk, when he saw the Abbot Hugo emerging from Laxintone's chapel.  
      Robert didn't grace the meddlesome oaf with a greeting, nor did Hugo immediately acknowledge him. Instead, the Sheriff sat proudly upon his mount as the priest approached, and he bristled at the brief look of confirmation which passed between his brother and his deputy. Only when Hugo turned to him did he swing himself over the saddle and dismount, hurling the reins at the unfortunate groom who stood waiting. “There are many uses for a horse-whip, boy; if my beast is ill-treated, _you'll_ learn them. I'll not have a repeat of Easter-tide!” And it was quite irrelevant that nothing out-of-the-ordinary had actually happened at Easter's shire-court, as the remark achieved exactly the desired result: the youth nearly fell over himself taking the Sheriff's mare away, and Hugo looked startled and then troubled.  
      The Abbot stepped forward and offered his arms; the Sheriff took his brother’s wrists in a stiff grasp and touched lips to his left cheek, then his right. “Hugo,” he said coldly, dropping the taller man's hands expeditiously.  
      “Robert,” the cleric responded. Then he dropped his voice below the range of common hearing. “I know what you’re going to say—“ he began.  
      Robert fixed the priest with his best crop-blighting glare. “Do you? Good. Then we can dispense with conversation altogether.” He strode ahead imperiously, leading the way towards Laxintone’s great hall. He could hear Hugo’s steps clipping quickly after him, but he reached the keep before his brother, and barely jumped back in time to avoid being struck by the heavy door, which swung open too quickly for caution. Laxintone’s lord stepped into view and beamed with evident delight, and it was quite possibly the first time ever that Robert de Rainault had been pleased to see the vociferous John de Byrkin.  
      “Robert!” the man exclaimed, immediately clasping arms and exchanging greetings as though he’d known the Sheriff all their lives. “Hugo, of course, and this must be the redoubtable Sir Guy!”  
      Gisburne bowed. “My lo—“  
      “Welcome, be welcome!” de Byrkin continued, gesturing towards the door. “I was just coming to see if you’d arrived yet — a boon of providence, that! Of course ‘tis indeed quite fine weather for travel, I’m not surprised you’ve made good time. Nearly everyone’s arrived, though we’re still awaiting the King’s messenger, well, I’m sure a King’s man has much business to attend, though I do wish he’d not make tardiness a habit — _lamasool!_ ” This last exclamation was directed, with a clap of the hands and gestures, to the first servant de Byrkin encountered as they climbed down the steps and into the hall. “Oh, but not for you, Robert — you see? I remember! — _two, and bring wine!_ ” he yelled after the retreating man. Then the boisterous, diminutive lord — for the top of his head lay on the level with Robert’s eyes — bade them be seated near him, upon the benches near the open head of the table.  
      Robert took the place at Hugo’s left, allowing his brother the dubious honour of proximity to de Byrkin; Gisburne sat opposite his lord. When the Sheriff had settled into his spot, he studied the table’s occupants with amusement; the hall and its heavy wooden furnishings were more than double the size of those at Nottingham, and he was suddenly grateful to lack the capacity to host so many. Prior Peter of Lenton, at his left, gave him a curt nod before returning to the feast. Beyond him, there sat Prior Henry of Worksop, who would likely argue with Prior William of Felley through the entire meal; they shared platters with Abbot Michael from Grimstone and Abbot Richard of Welbeck. Even the ancient Abbot Philip of Rufford had come, though the young monk at his right seemed to be propping him up as they ate. The main table stretched so far down that Robert couldn’t clearly identify everyone seated there; however, most of those in attendance were clerics, which meant that Laxintone’s guest-roll was a veritable Domesday Book of men Robert disliked, and also explained why the roasted geese upon the table had been so vigorously picked over. Well, if Lord de Byrkin couldn’t be lauded for his companions — and really, the guest list followed the dictates of law, not the bonds of friendship — he was well known for keeping a full-to-groaning table; the three men had barely touched their seats when heavy dishes arrived.  
      “Christ,” Hugo swore softly at Robert’s ear, reaching for a trencher as he leaned forward. “Does he say anything without…without…”  
      “Enthusiasm,” Robert supplied. “And _no_.”  
      They made the same gripe every term, though it was renewed and made far more entertaining by the utterly gobsmacked expression on the “redoubtable” deputy’s face; Guy looked as though he’d been lifted, thoroughly shaken about, then set back down again. He dazedly lifted an apple from a tray of fruit, and nearly dropped it as a harried server pounded a mug of mulled ale onto the table before him.  
      “Have more care!” de Byrkin cried. “And where’s that wine? But you know, Robert, ‘tis impossible to keep the servants in good order these days — ah, there you are, Abbot, excellent — why, in my father’s day…but Sir Guy, ‘tis your first visit to Laxintone, is it not? Well, and what do you think of it?”  
      Gisburne looked up, startled, and hastily swallowed a mouthful of fruit to offer reply; he needn’t have bothered, as the man continued talking without awaiting his opinion.  
      “Had to make a few improvements since Easter-tide, Robert, frightfully drafty these stones, don’t you find? Good _heavens_ , where’s the _wine_ —“ He grabbed the sleeve of a server who was striding quickly from the other end of the table and likely had yet to even notice the new arrivals. “—do you want my guests to parch to death?” Then he sent the servant on his way and gestured up to the walls. “At least we’ve got the flags back up, had to store them during the work.”  
      The “flags” referred to a double row of embroidered silk pennants, hanging high above and parallel to the table, showing the coat of arms for every family and prominent member who'd held mastery of Laxintone since its construction. Of course Nottingham possessed similar regalia – every castle did – but de Rainault had ordered those banners stowed the day after his inauguration; he didn’t need a prominent display to mark his own family’s absence from the heraldic rolls. He didn’t even glance up at the flags now, recognising a boast in de Byrkin’s clumsy narrative; instead, he regarded the bewildered steward, who by now was ignoring their host and tucking into the meal with aplomb.  
      De Byrkin nodded approvingly at Gisburne and then turned his attention back to the Sheriff. “Good gracious, Robert, you barely eat anything,” he laughed. “Last term as well! Hugo, your brother’s got the appetite of an anchorite; he should have been one of your monks!”  
      At that, Guy looked up from his plate, his small cough badly disguising a giggle. “My lord, I don’t think—“  
      “Thus confirming our suspicions, Gisburne,” Robert interrupted smoothly. Hugo chortled into his meat. A passing servant placed a clean cup upon the table in front of Robert; well, that was a start. Gisburne’s answering look was poisonous, but the Sheriff’s lips quirked upward in a subtle smirk. And perhaps it was some soothing effect of the warm ale that the knight actually seemed to relax, and even returned to his victuals without whining.  
      At last a servant entered with a flacon; de Byrkin eyed it with relief and then concern. “ _Here_ we are...though I wonder if the vintage is quite suited to the meat? Too sharp, perhaps...“ With that, he poured a dribble from the bottle into his own cup and tasted it. His face puckered, and he handed the tall vessel back to the servant with an irritated dismissal. “Wretched! _Something lighter!_ The man brings _claret_ to attend goose, can you believe it? Christ, you’ll never return, at this rate! And it _is_ so good to see you, Robert! But I'd best let you dine a while, attend the others at table. You _will_ excuse me, I hope?!” At the brothers' sincere nods, de Byrkin picked himself up and began to make the rounds of his guests, chattering to each unfortunate in turn.  
      The Sheriff straightened the ring upon his finger, then picked up his empty goblet and stared at it, turning it end over end. Hugo could ignore a battlefield if there was food to be had, but Gisburne had given up all pretense of eating and now looked at the Sheriff with his lips pressed white from restraint. For once, the knight was actually having trouble _not_ smiling; Robert preferred claret, and it would have suited the meat perfectly.  
      Robert gazed into his empty cup, then at Gisburne, ensuring he had the deputy’s attention before leaning his cheek upon his hand and adopting an exaggerated expression of misery. In reply, Gisburne made a mockery of sympathy, frowning and holding out his own cup of that loathsome _lamasool_. To the knight’s surprise, the Sheriff shrugged and reached across the table; he grabbed the mug from his deputy’s hand and drained it — quickly, to avoid actually tasting the bitter brew. When it was quite empty, save for the vomitous-appearing dregs, he set the cup back in front of Gisburne, with a nod and a smirk of satisfaction. Then he inclined his head in de Byrkin’s direction, a clear though silent commentary on the castle-lord’s vicissitudes.  
      For a moment Gisburne looked on the verge of a tantrum, but then a raspy, incredulous snicker burst from his throat. De Rainault kept his own mouth set in a firm frown, but it was of little use as Gisburne — still clutching a half-eaten apple, as though wielding a talisman against their jovial host — dropped his chin to his chest to hide helpless laughter. The ridiculousness of the whole affair disturbed the Sheriff’s usual poise, and to hell with the impropriety of it; he bent his head onto his forearm and shook with soundless hilarity. Hugo finally noticed the two men, apparently succumbing to some sudden insanity, and set down his meat with a quiet, irritated inquiry of, “ _What?_ ” The question only made them laugh even more, and try even harder to restrain it. Such an impolitic lapse ill-befit either man, and it should have warranted a scold to the deputy from the stern Sheriff. But then, Robert realised, there was no reason to reprimand Gisburne for such things any longer.  
      At the thought, his own composure returned quickly, and the sudden solemnity prompted Gisburne to pull himself together; Hugo simply shot them both a withering glance and then returned to his food. As they fell quiet, the distant sounds of lute and flute became audible, wafting over from the direction of the fire. Gisburne brightened — his relief and pleasure obnoxiously obvious — and grubbed up a handful of grapes to carry with him to the centre hearth, braving even de Byrkin’s solicitude in order to linger near the musicians.  
      When the knight had moved away from the bench, Hugo turned upon Robert unsubtlely. “Well, have you decided? On the matter of Newstead?”  
      “Christ, Hugo, I’ve not yet even had a drink,” he answered distractedly, again turning the goblet over his dextrous fingers.  
      “What does that matter? Now, listen, I don’t care what their damned charter says, we’ve the right of primacy; the village tithed Saint Mary’s a century before that blasted priory existed. Ten acres on its _outskirts_ is hardly extortion.”  
      Robert rolled his eyes and gave his reply _sotto voce_ to the imprudent abbot. “Eustace claims right of documented decree, Hugo. And I don’t move bound-stakes so you can flout the law to your liking; it’s still poaching if you drive the King’s beasts into open fields before shooting them.”  
      “My monks can’t live on air, Robert. And without the Leaford lands—“  
      “That wasn’t my doing!”  
      “You weren’t there to prevent it, were you?”  
      The conversation was turning dangerous. “You missed your true calling, Hugo,” suggested the Sheriff sweetly. “You should have been a speculator.”  
      “Of course. As you should have been a friar,” Hugo retorted.  
      _And Gisburne a minstrel_ , Robert finished silently; at least one of their ideas held some truth, for the knight was mad about music. Already bored by Hugo’s prattle, Robert glanced around the great hall until he found the man his eyes sought. The object of his thoughts was making merry near the singers, even talking to a few of the clerics; at the sight of his deputy, who seemed to be gaily celebrating his new-found freedom, anger flamed into the Sheriff’s empty belly.  
      “And what about Lenton?” Hugo persisted, interrupting Robert's brooding.  
      “What about it?” he sighed.  
      “The monks use a rather broad definition of 'deadwood' in their gathering, don't you think?”  
      His answering stare was incredulous. “That's what you intended by 'sanctions'? God's teeth, Hugo! Peter threatens Cluniac clout and brandishes royal privilege at me every time he finds the sacramental wine lacking in savour. Now you want me to issue a formal rebuke, over some branches?”  
      “Did you read the whole complaint? Live wood I can pardon. But rabbit? Deer? The arrow shaft's the 'dead wood,' Robert, not the animal on it—”  
      “Christ, can't you monks and your _merciful God_ work it out for yourselves?” Robert snapped.  
      Amidst the clamour of merry conversation, the crackling hisses of the fire, the sounds of music and revelry all around, the brothers sat in stony silence, until at last a cowed servant entered the hall, bearing a ewer; the Sheriff plucked the vessel from his hands and then waved him away.  
      “Besides, your own brethren are hardly saints in such matters,” Robert observed, filling his goblet while aiming a fresh barb. “Though, now I think of it, you do seem eager to encourage men in _pursuit_ of sainthood.” He held up the cup in a mocking salute and quickly drained it, then poured another.  
      Hugo watched him and heaved a beleaguered sigh. “Robert—“  
      “I’ll give the verdicts _in session_ ,” he growled. “Not a moment before.”  
      “No, Robert, it’s—“  
      “It’s less than a day ‘til you have your answer, man!” he pointed out, exasperated. “Surely you can wait that long!“  
      Hugo pushed his brother’s hand away from the ewer, trying to gain his attention.  
      “Really, Hugo, there’s plenty here if you want—“  
      “ _Robert!_ ”  
      The Sheriff looked up sharply. Hugo recoiled slightly, then studied his brother’s face a moment. Whatever he saw there made him rise from the bench and gesture to an unoccupied space near the doorway. Robert grudgingly followed; when they’d reached the shadowy corner, he turned upon his brother a frankly insouciant attention. “You can _start_ , then. I assume it was your idea.”  
      “No,” Hugo replied quietly. “He suggested it. I gave him my blessing.”  
      “Of course you did,” Robert answered.  
      “Some of us are believers, Robert,” Hugo priggishly argued. “But you never could lose gracefully. God only knows what blasphemies you wrote to dissuade him.”  
      “Nothing – _yet_ ,” Robert grumbled. “I only learned of this _stupidity_ a few hours ago.”  
      Hugo paused; confusion crossed his sour features. “This morning? That’s impossible.”  
      Robert’s eyes narrowed. “When did he tell you?”  
      The Abbot hesitated, but answered. “Two months ago.”  
      Robert chewed on this new piece of information; it explained why Hugo had told him nothing at Easter's shire-court. Then he remembered the start of their argument and smiled slyly at the priest. “Why fret over the Newstead borders, then? I'm sure you stand to gain handsomely from this parade of conspicuous devotion.”  
      “I don’t understand.”  
      How poorly Hugo pretended innocence. “Oh, come now. What will you get, sponsoring your brave parishioner in a holy cause? Acclaim, at the very least. Particularly if he dies and makes Nottingham’s first martyr.”  
      Hugo’s look was utterly confused, then suddenly aghast. “Good God,” he breathed. “You think I’m talking about Gisburne.”  
      Robert’s forehead furrowed. “Of _course_ about—“ His brother's face was solemn. “Christ, Hugo, are you answering a call or mounting an invasion? Who _else_ are you sending on this madness?”  
      “It isn’t madness—“  
      “ _Who else?_ ”  
      “Édouard!” the cleric exclaimed. “Damn you, I’m not _sending_ him anywhere! He’s a grown man; it's his own choice. When was the last time you read his letters, Robert? And don’t tell me he doesn’t write you! My God, you actually thought I was speaking of _Gisburne?_ ” He eyed his brother with disgust. “Typical of you. All too quick to turn your back on your own—“  
      “I have _work_ to do, Hugo!” he insisted, for the second time that day, angrily recalling the pile of untouched correspondence on his work-table. “In case you’d forgotten! Do you believe I’ve time to wallow in the familial mire? The laws that keep your monks in meat and land and God knows what else, where do you think they come from?”  
      “You kept keen attention upon _Gisburne’s_ doings, didn't you?” Hugo accused. “Of course you did. He’s got the right pedigree, never mind that he can’t stand you—“  
      “Hugo—“  
      “And the sooner he’s out of Nottingham, the better! He won’t be Sheriff unless you’re dead, and he won’t stop until he is! Where does that leave you, Robert? He’ll either kill you, or trample over the shire ‘til John hangs you for it! I did you a _favour_ —“  
      “—by inciting my deputy to desertion?”  
      “—if _he_ dies, at least it won’t be _you!_ ”  
      “ _Hugo._ ”  
      It was only their current location that saved the priest from a blow to the face; as it was, the single spoken word was deadly calm. Hugo warily looked around, but the room’s volume had kept their anger from others’ ears, though the occasional monk turned a curious eye in their direction.  
      Then the Abbot shook his head. “They’re leaving in June, Robert. Perhaps nine months is enough time to write your own brother with some parting sentiments. If the effort doesn’t tax you too much!”  
      Robert’s eyes blazed with rage, controlled by circumstance and little more. “You’re not my confessor, Hugo. Do not _dare_ presume to scold me,” he warned. “Or you could find more boundaries moving against you.”  
      “I’d like to see you try,” Hugo challenged, staring down his brother scornfully. “See how far you get in a Christian county with your name excommunicate. Some already think you the Devil. They might just burn the castle around you, make it more like _home_ for you.”  
      Robert's answering threat was given in an almost pleasant tone. “Where would that leave _you?_ ”  
      The pause was long and tense, but finally the Abbot pursed his lips primly and gave up the argument, stalking away in an angry huff and striding towards the fire as though a sudden chill explained his capitulation. At the sight, Robert bared gritted teeth; really, it was almost unfair to engage Hugo in a battle of wits, given how ill-equipped he was for the fight. He returned to his seat and his wine, anticipating a moment’s peace from the machinations of manipulative clerics — until the hulking Prior Eustace crossed the hall to take the now-empty place at his right.  
      “My lord Sheriff,” he began. “I ask a word—“  
      “You’ve already spoken several,” the Sheriff retorted bitterly.  
      The placid Prior laughed. “True enough, my lord. But I wish to speak on the matter of Newstead—“  
      Robert’s eyes fluttered up to the high beams, then back down, staring rheumily at his drink as he allowed the man to talk _at_ him rather than _to_ him. What followed was a veritable procession of preachers and politicians, approaching him one by one as though striking up casual conversation, then wasting his time with banal pablum about the weather before finally revealing their purpose. It was rather like being accosted by a gaggle of barnacles, and their self-absorbed honking only reminded his growling stomach of the roasted goose sitting untouched before him. But years of scribe-work had ingrained in him a bias against handling business and board together, so he drank wine and pretended to listen to their drivel.  
      Only around the sixth “audience” did the Sheriff realise what had changed since Easter-tide: the men now saw a chance to _keep_ the claims they were so impatiently staking. Every man with the slightest interest in a village boundary, garden plot, or fishing-pond on Sherwood Forest's border was now harrowing the Sheriff, striving to protect his rights over property that had lain fallow and valueless these long years, so long as a band of dangerous outlaws had made approaching the forest dangerous and entering it impossible. He'd been so preoccupied with his own plans, his private concerns, that he hadn't anticipated this particular impact of Robin Hood's disappearance. By the time the snivelling clerics finished with him, he had no appetite for the toothsome fare that rested invitingly before him. Some of the men were returning for a joyous and quite drunk second round — dinner being overdue, what with the revelry of tuneless singing and discoordinate capering — so Robert rose, stretching aching muscles for a moment, and sought out the castle's lord.  
      John de Byrkin was a troubling man, for he wasn’t entirely the babbling fool he seemed. Robert had first taken the man’s overbearing hospitality for the burbling of a drunken mooncalf. But over the years, he'd found de Byrkin to be a sly, even sinister, strategist when sober. And anyone who underestimated Laxintone's master, as a result of such parties, might find their properties and holdings yanked out from under them, while he kept smiling and offering more drink.  
      All the same, the man was a disorganised disaster in his cups, and thus Robert found de Byrkin tottering a little off-balance and speaking, without apparent need of breath, to a small knot of priests. The man greeted him expansively, kissing his cheeks and again scolding him for his melancholic austerity, but at last summoned a servant to guide him to his rest. Before departing the hall, Robert helpfully volunteered to de Byrkin that the Abbot Hugo and Sir Guy were the best of friends, who would surely wish to lodge together and share their secrets long into the night. The lord delightedly assured him that it would be done; thus avenged, Robert bowed and then followed a torch-bearing servant through the winding castle keep.  
      The chamber into which he was ushered was small and not luxurious, but at a gathering of this size he was fortunate to have a space at all, much less a solitary one. He waved away questions about his warmth and comfort, and hid a shudder when refusing a servant-girl as “companion” for the evening, but accepted the offer of a nightcap and was brought, to his surprise, mulled wine in a shining cup. He was then left alone, with a torch, a mug, and a mattress that looked clean, if not particularly inviting. As he lifted the cup to his lips, a glint caught his attention; he looked up, and realised that he stood opposite a window — a pretty conceit, bordered in an etched pattern of stars. The closer he moved to the shadowed glass, the sharper his own reflection became.  
      The Sheriff kept mirrors at Nottingham, of course; he dared not trust his official presentation to the judgment of servants. His own features were familiar enough to him, appearing often in meticulously polished brass. But this image, warmed by the golden light of a torch and reflected upon a darkly shimmering surface, was alien to him, strange as the changeling he'd so long ago been named. This face bore burdensome duty in every line — and there were more of those than he'd realised. The hair resting on his forehead in wisps was thin, mocked by the thick beard he wore. Robert stared, suddenly agitated, and the drink bore no blame for his distress. He stretched a hand out to the glossy surface, and only when his fingertips touched did he realise how he appeared: every inch an overworked clerk, like a household official overseeing some wretched holding.  
      He shut his eyes against the sight; he'd not thought of Cléville in years, and he couldn't stand to recall it now. But in his grasping thoughts, every face that replaced his own was a stab drawing heart's-blood. Quickly, he opened his eyes and looked again into the portal, past his own visage and out at the night, where a nearly full moon spilled silver-white lustre onto the countryside. The gentle slopes of the land, too, were known to him, and the curves of roads running over them. Further in the distance, he spied a thick, secret darkness: the border of Sherwood Forest, the tangled verdure beyond — his charge, _his_ , and the likely grave of Herne's Son as well.  
      Though Robert felt ancient as those roadways, carved centuries before, he had only forty-one years, and fire enough within him to last far longer. This night could be one of many, then, this saint's-day feast one of dozens to come. Sherwood had been rendered harmless; its imagined “mysteries” would soon lie bared to the common gaze. And the Sheriff could finally complete his work unencumbered, make time for the letters gathering dust in his possession, perhaps even remember what it was to sit and dine alone, with no-one bothering him over invented insults or trivial woes. So he lingered, a good long while, in the stark silence of the very peace he'd sought since his first year in Nottingham.  
      Finally, he turned away and drained what was surely his hundredth cup that day; the warm, honeyed spice-wine sweetly muzzled his thoughts. And then it hardly mattered that the night's serenity seemed a trial to be endured, and he no longer cared that the silence might be the only response to the question which no scroll, nor sword, nor even soul had yet answered. He could almost hear winds racing through the trees of Sherwood, asking them — and him — _what now?_ But such musings would serve him nothing; wearily, he tumbled into bed, allowing himself no more idle foolishness.  
      When he awoke, the moon had moved its full course over the sky, and the window showed him only a mundane grey morning; he then recalled his dim, morbid notions, no doubt inspired by too much wine. He sat up slowly and shook away the fog of sleep, recalling the peculiar dreams his own fancies had provoked: a mist pouring over a rocky outcropping, and a voice whispering, again and again, _who is the greatest enemy?_ The Sheriff gave a short, derisive laugh and resigned himself to small-beer and water for the day; if his skull-pounding agony was any indication, the 'greatest enemy' to his day's labour lurked within the wine-cask. Fortunately, his clothing had been laid out neatly, sparing him the effort of yelling commands, and the wash-basin's water was cold enough to shock him into some semblance of humanity.  
      By the time he emerged into the dark corridor, he’d made a decision that quite pleased him and was equally certain to irritate Gisburne, thus doubling its merit in his mind. He opened the door leading to the courtyard and approached the waiting men, holding back a certain smug amusement from his expression. The assemblage awaiting the morning “pilgrimage” to Saint Michael the Archangel's was a sorry lot, faces pallid and sombre, showing far more regret of the prior day's refreshments than of any moral transgressions. The lumbering knight stood amongst them, as far from Hugo as propriety allowed, his eyes shadowed and his expression somewhat less than reverent. The Sheriff made his way to his deputy’s side and spoke softly.  
      “Attend me, Gisburne,” he instructed, gesturing before them. They walked side-by-side, Gisburne weary and the Sheriff surprisingly bright; when Robert had placed them a few paces’ distance from the clerics, he spoke again. “You’ll go without me. Bend de Byrkin’s ear with a bit of flattery, will you? Some fresh colour on the statuary, and the chancel, I think he said; you’ll see the new stone.”  
      “But, my lord—“  
      “If anyone asks, I’m reviewing affidavits before session starts. I’ll be in the hall.”  
      “But, my lord—“  
      “Come to me immediately on your return. A few matters of protocol before we begin.”  
      “My _lord!_ ” Guy exclaimed. “You can’t…that is,” he stammered at Robert’s arched eyebrow. “…you _ought not_ to stay back. The Mass gives the saint’s blessing to the court.”  
      “I doubt he’ll smite the proceedings to chastise my absence, Gisburne,” the Sheriff answered.  
      Guy shook his head in sullen reproach.  
      De Rainault pursed his lips at the unwelcome resistance; it was entirely too early for such pointless argument, and especially with his pious pretender, who violated the fifth writ of the decalogue with such gleeful frequency as to invalidate his views on theosophical matters completely. “I don’t recall asking your opinion of your orders, Gisburne!”  
      To his surprise, Gisburne flared up in a daring reply — perhaps emboldened by the thirty or so witnesses awaiting his return. “No, _you_ wouldn’t. I’ll pray for you to be less…disagreeable.”  
      “Don’t bother,” the Sheriff hissed, lifting his eyes in a quick warning to his deputy. “I’ve received enough blessings of late from your ‘soldier of God.’ Now _go_.”  
      Gisburne resembled a blaze, in both his frustrated flush and his gold-edged robes of red and white; now, the lustrous silk swished behind him with an almost comic flourish as he stalked back to his companions. The Sheriff then turned and walked officiously towards the bailey's opposite end, letting his carriage and stride convey a completely invented sense of urgency. It was hardly his fault that the Terce service was anything but terse; well, let the imbeciles waste the morning in hypocritical pleas. He was all too pleased to use their absence, to organise his documents and look over the collection rolls. By noon, all rents owing ought to be paid, and the court assembly would return, and then they could do something more useful than raising a plaintive ruckus to some invisible sky-being — who, _if_ he existed at all, surely had better uses for his time than giving audience to mankind’s endless tirade.  
      Hugo would disagree, of course, and probably _was_ disagreeing; Robert could almost hear the gravelly remonstrations of the Sheriff's impious conduct, sure to spoil the entire walk to Saint Michael’s. Many years before, Robert’s non-attendance at Mass had been the scandal of the county, and Hugo had been quite displeased to encounter wariness rather than welcome from his new parishioners, who wondered what sort of Abbot could leave his own brother apostate. Robert had blithely instructed Hugo to spread rumour that the Sheriff of Nottingham was a child-sacrificing demon-worshipper, whose very approach to the Abbey would cause the holy water to boil away and the rood to catch flame, thus neatly explaining his absence and also terrifying the serfs into seeking the Church’s protection. Alas, the persnickety Abbot had ignored the helpful suggestion, and it was to his own detriment, really, as every high holy day was now marred by an argument he was certain to lose; no priest could protest the pressing workload of a King’s High Sheriff.  
      Still, recognising a rare point of reason hidden in his brother’s nagging, Robert grudgingly put in an appearance within church walls once a year or so — usually at Yuletide, as it gave opportunity to greet the thanes who claimed Nottingham’s gifts on behalf of their villages. And the Sheriff hid well his scorn of the attendees, for he knew most of those common-folk to be deeply entrenched in Pagan worship. He'd seen some of them on his shire-tours, tending antlered altars and dancing round bedecked poles — those same men who donned felt hats and attended Mass alongside heavily wimpled wives, though they none bothered to cover their heads for the Blessing or Harvest rites. What did they find within the church’s barren stones, he wondered, those simple drudges who reverenced wind and earth? There was no stag-headed saint in any sanctuary, and most of the statuary simply folded hands in reverence and gazed distractedly upward, as though dismissing the worshippers to seek converse with the rafters — and those were the bodies that _didn’t_ hang bleeding from wooden beams. What use did anyone have for such grim imagery; for that matter, the Sheriff thought irreverently, what thinking man could seek answers amidst such intellectual poverty, from a “library” consisting of only a single tome? Then he recalled Gisburne and Hugo, even now ambling obediently to the service; having answered his final question, at least, he put the matter from his thoughts completely.  
      Then he entered the great hall, and the startled servants scattered affrightedly before his approach; despite de Byrkin’s laments about poor service, the Sheriff found his hands bathed and his place set with a light repast before he could issue any such orders. Their speed was fortuitous, for he suddenly realised his own hunger, and ate and drank well enough, lacking any blustering disturbances. Then he pushed aside the dishes, cleaned his hands scrupulously, and after summoning his documents from the trust of de Byrkin's castellan, spent an absorbing hour re-reading all of the different tales which the peasants had set to witnessed seal. It astonished the Sheriff that none of them ever thought to ally with each other, to decide upon one story and then share out the profits gained by swearing to it. Instead, he held forty variances upon ten truths, and the line of his mid-forehead cut still deeper as he read, his bemusement turning all too quickly to disgust.  
      And so, the Sheriff of Nottingham had worked himself into a fine, and quite justified, lather by the time the church-goers began to trickle in to the great hall. The men were subdued and their conversations quiet, but he could hear the sounds of festive music and gay shouting from the courtyard each time the door opened, for the Michaelmas celebrations had eagerly resumed at the morning service's conclusion. Finally, he relinquished even the appearance of perusal and began rolling the documents shut; he might as well set the parchments alight, for all the aid their contents afforded. But he put the wickedly meritorious idea from his mind as Gisburne reached him and stopped quietly at his left, awaiting instruction. He caught Hugo’s attention with a wave and gestured to the scrolls; Hugo nodded and took up guard, while Robert stepped with his deputy away from the assembling attendants.  
      “You'll find few differences from the hundred-court,” he began. “They'll start with a prayer, probably led by Abbot Eustace. Let’s hope they don’t argue over the 'honour' this term. We take oath, as usual; the cases come first, followed by the shire's accounts. Drink is kept there—” he pointed out the table at the south wall, “—well away from the records. The scribes are there—“ _there_ being a sturdy desk now set against the west wall, “—two to write, two to witness.” At Gisburne’s curious look, he elaborated. “One copy stays archived here; the other goes to Newark.” At the thought, the Sheriff surveyed the hall quickly; he saw no-one wearing the King’s colours, which meant that he’d have to invent and relay “John’s” thoughts this session. He sighed and turned his attention back to Gisburne. “If officials of Church and Crown together oppose a verdict, they can challenge it — which, if you lodged with Hugo, you already know—”  
      “I know that the Abbot _snores_ ,” Gisburne interrupted, looking daggers at de Rainault.  
      “So he does,” the Sheriff agreed. “Now. The process to overturn any ruling is long, complex, and extremely dull. And it requires unanimous agreement from this crowd of buffoons, so if you question my decisions, we'll remain in session all night. I'm sure every cleric here has been pressing coin upon you and pretending sudden urges of generosity. Ignore their requests.” He favoured the knight with a small, twisted smile. “Though you can keep the silver; they'll hardly complain to the Archbishop about a thwarted bribe. At the end, we sign and seal both documents. It could go quite late, depending whether de Byrkin involves ale. Questions?”  
      Gisburne pinched his forehead, evidently demoralized by the mere mention of more ale, and shook his head; it seemed Robert wasn’t the only one suffering the aftereffects of the previous night. Then the knight opened his eyes, and the Sheriff studied him for a moment, suddenly wanting to speak of anything except court procedure. “A good service, was it?”  
      Gisburne drew himself up to full height and answered with pride. “It was, my lord. Better still, absent any… _skeptical_ remarks.”  
      “There's no harm in _thinking_ , Gisburne,” he retorted. But that blue gaze was deliciously defiant, and the temptation to keep talking was acute. Robert nearly resisted the idea that came to mind; then again, how many more opportunities to bother the knight would he have? So he stepped closer and dropped his voice low and soft. “The _Pax_ , for instance. Odd that the Mass _ordains_ what some men call _sin_ , don’t you th—“  
      “My _lord!_ ” Gisburne interrupted, shocked.  
      God, how simple it was to unsettle the man; Guy put a hand to his face as though pressing away weariness, and Robert glimpsed the furious blush that he hurried to conceal. Something in that consternation mollified the Sheriff, and so his next words were more gentle. “Alright, Gisburne.”  
      But the knight had again turned flat and cold. “Any further orders, my lord?”  
      For a moment, the Sheriff wondered why he had bothered to bring the deputy at all, after the ingrate had made known his decision — his ill-considered, stupidly idealistic decision. But he looked past Gisburne and saw the attendees settling into their places, and so the Sheriff of Nottingham had no time to concern himself with the unalterable. “None,” he replied brusquely. He gestured, and they returned to the assemblage, idling wordlessly amidst the rolled texts.  
      They'd not long to wait until Laxintone's chapel bell struck the sixth hour; at the tolling tones, most of the priests present bent their heads and muttered some private devotion. Then Eustace took up the thread of prayer, leading a lengthy petition to beg yet more blessings from the God who, Robert thought, had surely heard enough of such requests earlier that morning. While every other man bowed his head, the Sheriff took a quick assessment of the hall and found it orderly and prepared. The high-ranking clerics sat at table, the freedmen and remaining priests stood appropriately behind them, and scribes and servants attentively awaited their duties. The vast hall, festively dimmed the evening before to encourage gathering round the fire, now shone, with rows of torches lining the walls and candle-beams hoisted at the room’s cross-quarters. The hall was warm, light, and well-provisioned, an ideal courtroom that could have supported three times the sixty men in attendance.  
      But there was the crux of the irksome matter, Robert thought, pursing his lips at the nattering clerics: everyone sought benefit from the law, but few obeyed it with equal fervour. Fewer still bothered to support it, for many of the qualified manorial class simply paid for the privilege of non-attendance at court, then traipsed merrily off to attend the seasonal festivities after settling quarter-rents owed. Only the Sheriff lacked the luxury of dropping silver upon the table and shirking the proceedings in favour of entertainment. Still, the low tally at least portended a speedy session; not even at the namesake hundred-courts did the numbers often reach so high as a full century gathered, and the Sheriff had made do with far less. Finally the whingeing concluded, and the assemblage then turned to him, and he schooled his face in careful detachment as he drew his knife — one of only two weapons allowed in the hall, to which he’d won right after months of excessive argument.  
      The conflict had started over an outdated tradition of backwards little Nottinghamshire — where the basic shire-division, which most of England deemed the _hundred_ , was instead termed a _wæpentæc_ , where cases had once been judged by weapons raised and clashed in clamours of support. It was a practice that struck the Sheriff as little more than rowdy barbarism, and he marveled that any leader had survived the monthly hundred-courts, given dozens of hot-tempered, weapon-carrying Saxons sure to be provoked by the verdicts. Such suicidal custom had no place in de Rainault's demesne, and had become quite impossible anyhow; the Sheriff had conducted his own “weapons-take” in his second year of office, leaving the peasants only working knives and restricting defensive weapons to the village thanes and bound-guards alone. And he'd enjoyed the full support of the Church, for the priests had embraced disarmament in support of God's peace, eager to remove violent – and rebellious – temptations from their flocks. It had all proceeded quite smoothly, until some of the clerics had proposed to carry the charade further and purge the public moots of arms, prattling on about accord as though they actually believed their own claptrap about justice and the _pax deorum_.  
      Of course the Sheriff knew better, but he’d seized upon the convenient excuse for eliminating a thoroughly ridiculous relic, ending the weapons-take custom by simply barring arms from the courts. Henceforth, any arms-bearing man requesting entrance had his sheathed blade confiscated, and gatherings were protected by soldiers who surrounded the meeting-place. Naturally, that had necessitated moving the hundred-courts, out of the public squares and into structures; the chosen chambers were thoroughly investigated in advance and vouchsafed by the holding lord, who would pay for any dangerous oversights with his own arrest. As a final safeguard, de Rainault regularly shifted the locations of the court-moots, communicating their rotation only to those qualified to attend. Even so, the Sheriff of Nottingham had refused to stand unarmed before any man, ordained or no, nor would he allow his deputy to be rendered similarly defenseless. To those terms alone he’d held without compromise; the result was that first he, then Guy, drew weapons and swore their identities upon the blades, before sheathing them and taking their seats. The display drew hard, mistrustful stares; let them glare, de Rainault silently challenged, or else shoulder his burdens and so earn the same right.  
      With that minor victory re-affirmed, he cast a richly-gleaming hand over the pile of scrolls and pulled up the parchment set on top, recalling the King's latest ravings as he did. “The most noble and valiant King John conveys greetings to the people of Nottinghamshire, expressing his pleasure in our recent concord and enjoining us to maintain this peaceful condition. He intends a royal visit to Laxintone in the spring, after concluding his affairs in the Touraine, where he bravely opposes the most perfidious betrayal of the lord de Lusignan. Let it also be known that His Majesty has outlawed the entire Lusignan family; anyone attempting to shelter or defend those traitors to the Crown shall incur the royal wrath, and a punishment most severe.” Robert stared sternly at the crowd to impress the matter's importance upon them, though truly, not ten of those sixty men knew who Hugh de Lusignan was, nor cared for any events currently transpiring in the Touraine.  
      Then the Sheriff continued onto the first case of the day's docket, outlined in the scroll before him; it was the most convoluted of the various disputes to be addressed, and he'd determined to move past it quickly. “That warning having been issued, we now turn to the matter of Ordesale—”  
      “Aye, m'lord,” answered William, the master of Felley Priory, a bit too quickly.  
      The Sheriff glared at the eager cleric. “Very well, Prior William, I'll start with you. Have you any other evidence to put forth?” When the man shook his bald pate, the Sheriff nodded dismissively. “Then I am refusing your claim outright. The outlays in question lie twenty-five miles from Felley; the distance is simply absurd.” It was the truth, though it also pleased him to see the man deflate so quickly. “Has the lord of Worksop made answer?”  
      Prior Henry volunteered a response. “The Lord de Furnival is in Tours. He was summoned five months ago to attend the King. We've had no word.”  
      “The lord has a son, does he not?” inquired Gisburne.  
      The Sheriff sighed quietly. Leave it to the knight, lacking progeny himself, to know the issue of every nobleman from Holbeck to Honfleur.  
      “My lord deputy,” the Prior began diplomatically, amusement brightening his voice, “Thomas de Furnival was born three years ago. He's hardly prepared to settle this case.”  
      Amidst the laughter provoked by the Prior's remark, the Sheriff noticed his deputy's sudden flush. “Isn’t he, Prior?” he asked Henry lightly. “The lad's got to learn _sometime_.”  
      He gave a conciliatory gesture with a bejewelled hand, as though all had been settled; the hall's mirth quieted, and the Sheriff smiled. He was well-known for capricious and unfathomable decisions, and so he let them stew for a few moments, wondering whether he'd indeed hand the matter over to a three-year-old boy. But finally, he continued, laying doubt to rest with another question. “De Furnival's seneschal?”  
      “Ailing health, my lord,” Henry answered delicately. In truth, they spoke merely for the scribes' records; all knew de Furnival's head-of-household to be far advanced in years, with a mind that had grown unfortunately disarrayed during the lord's absence.  
      “Very well,” the Sheriff replied thoughtfully, hearing neither objection nor suggestion to break the resultant silence. He tapped the parchments with an impatient fingertip. “So. Worksop claims for Retford the Idle's east bank, Blyth the west, and Welbeck the fishing rights to that stretch of river. You see the difficulty.”  
      The three priors looked at each other in astonishment, none having known of the others' claims. The Sheriff would have been quite content to divide up the territory accordingly, and let the monks knock each other into the Idle from sunup to sundown, but the accord which John had so fictitiously praised ought to be upheld, he supposed. Really, these stone-headed monks—but, at the thought of stone, he searched the crowd for another cleric, one whose presence might spoil his seedling notion. No, the man hadn't come, and with reasonable cause; he lacked sufficient political power to oppose his brother-priors, whose connections choked off most of the region's resources. But the Sheriff looked almost fondly on priests who didn't pester him about politics, and certainly he delighted in issuing confounding commands; his sudden solution was therefore ideal.  
      “Absent sufficient secular guidance, the land shall be transferred to the custodianship of the Church,” the Sheriff announced, already enjoying the shire-court more than strictly necessary. “And as such awards ought to serve the greatest good, I uphold the fourth claim: the disputed acreage, with all attendant rights, is entrusted to Prior Roald of Maresey.” The prior month's fire at Mattersey had not been catastrophic, but the monks had struggled for years, their priory having been founded - by some nobleman's inept impulse - upon barren gravel. They'd receive the fertile land most gratefully; the riparian rights alone ought to compensate their losses and keep them from bodily need. Better still, the gape-jawed priors who now witnessed the grant could hardly protest it without appearing as rapacious demons. The Sheriff made note to inform Roald of his new property and to suggest that the Prior write an affidavit requesting it, in case the supporting documents of this session should be examined.  
      Then de Rainault opened the next set of scrolls, which outlined concerns about whether the prioress of Broadholme — who couldn't attend the shire-court to defend her own case — could exercise right of advowson to the parish church of Harby. Both priory and village stood so near Lincolnshire's border that the Sheriff might have referred the matter to his colleague, claiming a greater interest for that shire than his own. But he far preferred to settle the quabble himself, and so avoid dealings with Philip Mark, the “Butcher of Lincolnshire,” whose reckless ruthlessness qualified de Rainault for the holy canons by comparison. The case was rather trifling besides, as the “historical precedents” presented were antiquated at best, relying mostly upon the prioress' womanhood to disqualify her chosen candidate. The Sheriff had no more use for women than did the ostensibly celibate clerics, but he delighted in hearing the idiots stammer after he pointed out a much earlier precedent, which rather supported female involvement in matters of religious sponsorship. Anyhow, even without the Nativity's example to uphold his judgment, it behooved Robert to be generous in matters of patronage, considering how far he'd stretched the law to claim Saint Mary's for Hugo.  
      Having thus protected the Prioress' interests, the Sheriff continued to the next case, and so the afternoon proceeded, slowly and drearily, in contention over various thorny points of ownership. Even the smallest lump of Nottinghamshire's earth was governed by both documented law and ancient tradition, tinged with shadings of political consideration and further blurred by overlapping interests — inevitable for a county where village bounds were marked round haphazard clumps of dwellings and farmlands tilled as open fields, dependent upon a seldom-achieved cooperation. The shire-court was a basic necessity, for all that it could be a bothersome banquet of balderdash, and so the Sheriff dutifully perpetuated the custom despite his less-than-favourable opinion of it.  
      Still, he was testy and tired by the time the clock struck the ninth hour; with only one case remaining, the Sheriff eyed its claimants with warning fire in his expression. He couldn't placate both men, who were each other's bitter enemies, and given the choice between sternly-worded missives from Cluny or antagonizing scowls aimed across Sherwood, he'd decided to exercise his own particular power to silence them both. “Prior Eustace. Abbot Hugo. I've read your affidavits with careful consideration. Unfortunately, the matter can no longer be debated, as a result of suspected poaching activity upon the acreage in question. I've no choice but to remand the territory to judicial custody, pending investigation. We’ll re-open the matter at Easter-tide.”  
      Having thus angered _everyone_ who had a stake in the borders of Newstead township, the Sheriff closed the final scrolls, completing the first half of the moot. A brief recess followed, during which castle-folk tended the refreshments, and participants wetted argument-whetted lips. De Rainault quickly gulped water and prepared himself for the budgetary squabbling to follow. He’d gained much ground, in every sense of the expression, with his verdicts; now they would expect him to relent, to soothe the stings of lost acreage with liberal applications of silver. And so he would, having left more than sufficient space in the rolls to smooth the clerics’ ruffled feathers.  
      But when the session resumed, it was the far reaches of the halls that echoed with complaint, the lordlings clucking and cluttering more than de Rainault had expected. Some of the manor-lords had come with statements obviously prepared, and he’d hear squalling in abundance next term if he stifled their pompous speeches now. So he listened in a parody of patience, offering only facile counter-arguments and allowing them to claim small victories by “swaying” decisions he’d already made. There were but few difficulties encountered, of no great import, and it was a simple task for de Rainault to nudge the ledgers a little in either direction, to adjust, announce, and await rebuttal. He’d scribed figures for so long that the shire’s balances no longer needed recording, for his mind held the weight and tally of every silver.  
      The priests remained largely silent, and so the six-month budget was confirmed in less than a candlemark; when the matter was laid to rest, the Sheriff’s thoughts also settled, with knowledge of a burdensome task nearly past. The standing men bowed their heads, the seated clerics rose from table, and after the cacophony of popping joints and creaking bones had quieted, Prior Eustace again lifted hands and chin in prayer, gazing up as though projecting his intentions heavenward. De Rainault rolled his eyes rather than close them; his own experience dictated that repeatedly bothering one’s liege-lord seldom produced the desired result, and on plain principle, he stilled his lips despite knowing the responsories perfectly well. Finally, the assemblage revived from its somnolent reverence, seeming to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The Sheriff’s task, however, was not yet complete, and so de Rainault looked expectantly to his deputy, then nodded quietly towards the western wall.  
      Together, they moved through the hall, heading for the table where the scribes still scribbled in a sort of measured frenzy, recording the final moments of the proceedings. Neither Sheriff nor deputy was foolish enough to meet the eyes of the milling crowd, nor to stroll idly, knowing that to do so would invite attention – and further argument – from unsatisfied claimants already pondering Easter-tide’s court. Instead, the pair strode quickly, past the full length of the massive table, past the blazing fire and the scurrying servants, and came to rest impatiently beside the writers’ desk. The down-faced youths — who looked barely old enough to read the words they’d so laboriously transcribed — hurried through the final sentences, knowing that it would serve them ill to keep the lords waiting. At last, they shook flurries of powder over the parchments and rose from the seats, leaving the table and its contents to the officials.  
      The Sheriff took the chair nearer the fire; as Gisburne claimed the other, he nearly taunted the hesitant deputy — _it's simple lettering, Gisburne; you do still remember the knack of it?_ But writing, like the weather, was a dangerous subject, so he stayed silent and turned his attention to their shared task. Two parchments faced them, with matching rows of assessments and verdicts, neatly and even beautifully done despite the writers' inexperience. They bent their heads together and began to read, looking over the documents individually and then comparing them to each other. It took de Rainault only a few minutes to scan down the summaries and figures and confirm their accuracy, but when he straightened his shoulders and lifted his head, he saw that Gisburne still read at a painstaking pace, his small finger moving like a stylus to trace each line in turn. It was to be expected; the deputy was a fighter, not a scholar. Even his hands were the thick mitts of a swordsman, oddly heavy on his long, lean frame, and marked by calluses and pale scars that gave the lie to his unlined face. When half a page still remained beneath those sharply tapered fingers, a blade of sunlight shot through the window and scattered the softening shadows, painting the knight's pale hair with the patina of embroidered gold; the Sheriff watched, and waited, until at last Gisburne nodded his assent and took up the quill at his right hand, swiping away excess ink on the inkwell's side. Twice he signed, once upon each document, the titulary he'd earlier confirmed by noon-tide oath: _Sir Guy of Gisburne, Deputy Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Darbyshire, and the Royal Forests._ He shook powder over his scribble as though the powder-can were an enemy to be throttled, then plunked down both pen and pot and awaited his lord's response.  
      The more proper title for the knight's office was actually _Under-sheriff_ ; de Rainault allowed himself no suspicions or even thoughts about Guy's reasons for avoiding it, but simply lifted the quill resting to his right — a second-feather quill, fine and solid, well-suited to efficient record-keeping. The supple shaft molded gently to his fingers as he dipped the pen, then scribed his own signature with a flourish: _Robert de Rainault, High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Darbyshire, and the Royal Forests. Michaelmas, A.D. 1201, I.R. 2_. A delicate tip of powder followed, neither a fluttering cloud nor a sloppy scattering, and with a practiced hand, he withdrew the heavy seal of office from its gilt box. The table's candle was next pressed into service, and with more patience and care than he'd ever had for the court itself, de Rainault affixed wax and embossage to both papers. Then he deftly packed the ornate implement, handed it to the senior scribe, and nodded dismissal to both before standing.  
      Declaring the second year of John's reign was redundant, but he knew that the annotation pleased the wheezing little vole; it was the sort of political minutia he would have brought to his deputy's notice, if he'd any cause still to do so — or if he still enjoyed Gisburne's attention, which he didn't. Having completed his duty in full, the knight now cast what he likely believed to be a surreptitious glance about the hall; of course, it was about as subtle as a horse galloping through their session. The knight looked past the men, who now ate and drank with nearly as much gusto as they'd argued the finer points of estate law, and when his dejected look lingered upon the hearth, de Rainault guessed who he sought. Well, the shrieval docket didn't include such useless distraction as the festival, but there was no reason to keep them both within Laxintone's conspicuously renovated walls, gathering dust beneath its equally pompous flags.  
      “Strings cost, Gisburne,” he murmured to the deputy; at Gisburne's uncomprehending glance, he continued, indicating the door with a quick glance. “And the purses are out there.” The Sheriff had no doubt that de Byrkin had amply paid the musicians for the prior night's reception, but no lutenist worth his instrument would stay indoors now, pining for coins from the priests' tight gloves. Not when celebrating peasants brought ale-mugs to thirsting players and then collected coppers every few dances, to keep music and musicians lively through the day-long.  
      The knight didn't speak, but his ridiculously transparent face was wary as he looked around the hall with its comfortably chattering menfolk. With food and drink on offer, it might be hours still before the moot officially ended.  
      “Go,” de Rainault said quietly.  
      Gisburne hesitated and cast a concerned glance again at the hall. “But, my lord—”  
      “By the bloody _Rood_ , Gisburne,” the Sheriff snapped at him; he'd _rack_ the next man to contest his commands! “I _can_ manage without _but-my-lord_ babbled at me every few moments—” But his dry throat suddenly spasmed as he drew a breath to continue, and Gisburne's face looked strangely dim through his stinging eyes. A fit of coughing seized him. “Gis—” But he couldn't finish the word.  
      Gisburne's eyes too widened in panic, and his hand went to his throat at a paroxysm of coughing. Quickly he looked side to side, no longer discreet in assessing the room, and as he opened his mouth to cry out—  
      “My God, _fire!_ ”  
      The Sheriff couldn't identify the voice, but realised why he could hardly discern his deputy standing right before him: choking clouds of grey-white smoke were billowing forth from the hearth-pit, far more than a tended flame could dispense. Again the word repeated — _fire, fire_ — taken up by voices of increasing terror, and he heard cries and hacking coughs amidst the skittering of frightened feet. He grabbed the end of his cape and drew the cloth over his face, then startled as a loud boom shook the hall. A murky golden light diffused through the growing fog, and the Sheriff realised that the panicked men had thrown open the door.  
      He felt Gisburne grasp his shoulder; coughing, he held the man's grip fast and clutched his makeshift mask with his other hand. Together they pushed their way to the eastern wall, towards that open door and its promise of air and light.  
      Then he stopped, sick with the sudden realisation of a danger greater than even fire.  
      Frantically, he shoved Gisburne's hand free of his and then shouted with all the breath he could muster. “ _Go!_ ” Wheezing through his face-cover, he turned back towards the table and forced himself to return; clutching for the table with clumsy, swinging hands, he searched in a frenzy for the records that _could not_ be left behind, that would bring the King's wrath upon all of them — and fire be _damned_ — if lost. He heard distant swearing, ignored it. Fumbling, he finally gripped a solid surface and, half-blind, felt for the wax seals made only minutes before. At last he touched them, crumpled the parchments in his fist, then reached again for cloth to guard his breath.  
      But he was again seized, more ferociously than before; he nearly dropped his prize as Gisburne _hauled_ him away, dragging him by the arm towards the exit. Already the smoke had started to clear at the hall's far end; regaining strength with every step, the Sheriff gulped breath gratefully as he stumbled up the stairs. Finally he tottered into the sunlight, and the cold fall air seared the sickening smoke from his throat and eyes. He stood up straighter and saw the priests gathered, frowning and cowed. Gisburne stood motionless as well, amidst the company of the Nottingham guardsmen guarding the moot, and anger showed clearly in his fine features. The Sheriff looked at him sharply, unimpressed; in lieu of offering retort, with breath he'd not yet fully regained, he held up the signed court-verdicts.  
      Before the Sheriff could issue orders to save the keep, the parchments were wrenched from his hand, so fiercely that a sharp edge sliced his skin; he nearly lost his footing from the sudden force, save for the man who braced him against his own body. But Gisburne stood _before_ de Rainault, remaining still, simply _staring_ at him, with vicious ire flaming in his blue eyes; a guardsman kept a strangely attentive and steadfast watch over the knight, holding his arms fast as though playing with a doll. The Sheriff drew breath to demand an explanation, but he was interrupted by a point more icy and decisive than any judgment he'd yet passed, a startling and unwelcome thrust into a gathering that had proceeded with such civility.  
      The knife's statement was absolute, brooking no argument. It simply pressed against his windpipe, shuttering his words like unwelcome winds, threatening instant reprisal for any attempt at appeal. He strained to glimpse his assailant, but his hair was viciously tugged back, straining his eyes to the too-bright sky. His heart pounded fury in his chest as he heard startled cries; the voices sounding round them were soft and frightened — _by Christ!_ he heard Hugo cry — Christ indeed, and he might have known better than to expect appropriate outrage from a flock of Bible-bleating sheep!  
      The Sheriff of Nottingham refused to behave like some damned wether, to ruminate complacently while some unpleasant-smelling ruffian _dared_ to threaten him. Slowly, he inched his hand down towards his dagger; he'd nearly grasped the hilt when the subtle motion was quickly arrested and his head pushed down painfully, driving the edge at his throat in deeper. He felt groping hands at his waist, nearly tearing his belt away to free the knife and sheath there.  
      “Don' try it. _Sheriff_.”  
      He knew that voice — that crazed voice, giving a rasping command through gritted teeth, barely containing berserker rage in every word.  
      “Scathlock,” he breathed.  
      The grip upon him tightened.  
      Around him and Gisburne idled an arc of Nottingham soldiers, none moving a muscle to free them from their captors. “Stop them, you fools!” he gasped desperately.  
      But no-one moved, save a guardsman next to Gisburne, who stood at the level with the knight and shared his slender build. Familiar and infuriating memory washed over de Rainault and settled into the pit of his stomach as the man removed helmet and maille coiffe, letting dark hair tumble over his shoulders. His eyes were bright, his aspect shockingly merry; from his quick smile, he knew he was recognised, and reveled in it. The Sheriff had never known Laxintone Castle to be anything except bustling with activity and noise. But the peasants, who paid little enough attention to their lords and likely wouldn't have ceased their festivities even at King John's approach, suddenly quieted and stilled as a voice rang out: “ _'Tis Robin Hood!_ ”  
      Robin Hood!  
      _Robin Hood_...  
      The rush of excited, almost reverential sound swept the bailey clear of distraction, for no jongleur's tale or lutenist's melody could compete with the contemptible tragedy being staged for the people now—  
      “Sir Guy! Robert! My God!”  
      Clanks and clashes of metal responded; weapons flashed from sheaths to answer the shout. It was the unfortunate de Byrkin, who'd exited the stables to discover the disastrous mistreatment of his guests and now stood bewildered and shocked. De Rainault hoped that the lord wouldn't lose his wits and summon the Laxintone guard, thus forcing the hand of the crazed wolfshead at his throat.  
      Apparently the outlaw had the same wish. “Don't move!” yelled Scathlock, at ear-splitting volume.  
      "The keep's a- _fire!_ " the Sheriff cried angrily.  
      “No such thing,” laughed the man holding Gisburne in check. That voice, too, was familiar, and there was only one outlaw who towered over even the knight; his height gave away his disguise, even with the Norman helm obscuring his face.  
      A dark-haired man, his black eyes twin burning coals set beneath heavy brows, shook his head. He was clad in the threadbare livery of one of Laxintone's servants, but his swarthy Saracen features made his identity known; de Rainault noted angrily that the man still gripped the papers he'd stolen, pages he likely couldn't even read.  
      “Herbs,” the man said in peculiarly-accented English, giving the word a bird-like trill. “Green wood. No danger.”  
      The Sheriff understood, and wished he didn't. “You _drove_ us out,” he accused. “You—”  
      “Are we hostages?” Gisburne blurted out.  
      “Of sorts,” answered John Little of Hathersage, his grin evident beneath the helmet's flaring nosepiece.  
      De Byrkin was a-flush with offended fury, and the Sheriff could see a perilous explosion brewing in the man's expression. “Find Lady Joan,” he ordered. “Get her inside!” He made the command as loud as he dared to speak it, and never mind that de Byrkin should have thought of it _himself_ , the useless fool!  
      The stinking outlaw at his back yanked him off-balance; at the painful and disgusting touch, he protested as dramatically as he might. “The lady's with _child!_ You butcher brooding women, wolfshead?”  
      “ _'at's **your** lot, Sheriff! **Not mine!**_ ”  
      The scream was not fully sane, and the knife against his neck even less reassuring of the wielder's mental state; de Rainault ground his teeth against uttering any sound.  
      “Will.” The word was soft, but its effect was resonant; the Sheriff could feel the man at his shoulder calm.  
      Then the outlaws' leader spoke gently to de Byrkin. “We have what we came for. Find your lady. Remain within 'til we depart. No-one is to leave.”  
      De Byrkin's nod was grim but obedient; his face drooped with angry understanding as he ran to remove his woman from the courtyard. Deep down, de Rainault knew it unlikely they'd kill a wife, especially one soon to be a mother. But he didn't need the lord's blustering bravado getting _him_ butchered at the over-eager hands of a madman, nor did he need to be dragged from the grave to explain to King John why his favourite lord's lady had been left a pregnant widow.  
      De Byrkin and his line were safe, then, and the papers — _curse_ the outlaws, but the havoc they'd created _might_ be mended; he could re-write the lines himself, and Gisburne wasn't quick-witted but his memory was sound, and if the King never found out—  
      “People of Laxintone!”  
      The Sheriff shut his eyes a moment and exhaled heavily, hearing in that clarion call the start of trouble beyond repair. Now would come more of the supercilious grandstanding, the pathetic pandering to the peasantry for which the outlaws were so widely known. The courtyard was stuffed to overflowing with revelers, a filthy press of stench-laden humanity; it put him rather in mind of an overcrowded barn, and they all listened like feeble-minded fowl as the wolfshead spoke.  
      “It's not yet Midwinter, but we give them to you now: your Lords of Misrule!”  
      The laughter and delighted hand-clapping that accompanied the remark were obscene, but neither crowd nor criminals seemed much concerned with the basic decency of keeping knives back from others' throats. The knave crossed in front of the knight, cutting through their circle to show himself to the people; Scathlock turned himself and his prey around, giving de Rainault the dubious privilege of watching the lawless posturing that followed.  
      “Good people,” Robin began, “what you've heard, about devil-riders to the west, is true. And we've returned to Nottinghamshire to fight more devils. _These_ men—” at that, he pointed behind him as though indicating dogs, “—trying to buy favour with cast-off goods. As though the spirit of England were for sale!” He plucked an apple from a freedwoman's stall and held it out as he spoke, and de Rainault could see brown spots upon it; Christ, of _course_ they'd look like that if the dolt had kept bruised wares basketed with fresh. But Hood returned the fruit to its hamper and then continued on, evidently unhampered by logic. “While they enslave you upon your own lands, and steal what's yours by right!”  
      The Sheriff couldn't resist the angry snicker that the grandiose declaration provoked. But the murmurs through the crowd were approving and defiant, and the slow accusations that followed stopped the Sheriff's laughter in his throat.  
      “Hochenale,” Robin intoned, with the reverence of reciting a litany. “Clippeston. Repton. Ernehale. Loxley. _Castleton_.”  
      It seemed to the Sheriff that he again tasted smoke, his breath dry and choked with bitterness. “For God's sake, wolfshead—” he cried, before Hood could continue.  
      “'at's enough out o'you!” yelled Scathlock, gripping him as though he were made of butter and not flesh-and-bone.  
      “Afraid?” the Sheriff challenged.  
      Then Robin Hood himself turned and gazed; hazel eyes, with all of the dappled forest in them, met a deep, lightless brown. His aspect seemed to dance with pleasure, though he stood without moving. “Not of you. _Never_ of you.”  
      “Then why keep riling them?” he burst. “Dredging up old names and omitting the most important: _Hastings_. Your people lost this country a century ago—”  
      “And yours have plundered it ever since,” rang a clear reply. The lilting voice was another shock in an afternoon that seemed to hold nothing else; a wimpled woman stepped forth from the crowd and unwrapped her heavy veiling to reveal a tangle of auburn hair. She took her place easily at her husband's side, while the Sheriff fumed; he should have had the girl killed, not sheltered, and let her follow her father into the crusader's inevitable fate!  
      Again Robin smiled, that maddening and imperturbable smile. “ _Nothing's forgotten_ , Sheriff.”  
      The low phrase held a secret threat, one that only Herne's Son could make, but it made de Rainault more determined still to hold his own. “ _Things change_ , wolfshead.”  
      For a moment there was silence. He felt a grim, murky satisfaction as a few of the serfs looked uneasily at each other. But that single instant of vindication allowed him was an ephemeral pittance.  
      “They shall!” Robin announced. He motioned to the Saracen, who handed him the shire-court's documentation, which he then brandished high. “These are the laws by which they steal from you! Written with letters you're forbidden to learn. We've come to tell you — and _you_ , Sheriff — that we no longer acknowledge this 'court of law.'”  
      That was too much even for the Sheriff. “It's a Saxon instit—”  
      Scathlock's hand clapped over his mouth. “I said _enough_ ,” he rasped. “One more _word_ out o’you, an' I'll leave you bleedin' in the dirt. Or your lil' lapdog there—” a flick of the knife indicating exactly who was meant. “Clear?”  
      De Rainault nodded, fuming with futile resistance.  
      But Hood's face deepened and aged with sudden anger, and unexpectedly, he answered the muzzled man. “The court _was_ Saxon. Men met as equals in support of peace. Now the rich line their pockets and bellies while the people suffer! There's no justice in these pages. Lies, written by liars.”  
      He held out the verdicts. Slowly, deliberately, he tore the pages in half, then half again, and let them fall.  
      At the far end of the bailey, he spied other men in Nottingham uniform, moving the horse-hitched cart — the cart, which still contained the season's rents, _God!_ And he couldn't move or even cry out, as an awestruck crowd hung their simple peasant attentions upon Hood's every utterance.  
      “You'll forgive us for not lingering long,” Hood called cheerily. “But Michaelmas is for celebrating. For driving evil back. And we start here! That coin belongs to the people, Sheriff.”  
      Silent astonishment met the statement, followed swiftly by acclaim.  
      “And, since some of you traveled days to pay these demons, we give you another gift. In honour of Saint Michael! And Herne.”  
      Then Robin returned to them and announced, both to the officials and to the riveted assembly, clearly enough to be heard by all. “ _My lords_. It's time to start walking. Nottingham's a fair ways.”  
      “It's nearly thirty miles!” exclaimed Gisburne, amidst the hooting and laughter of Laxintone's people.  
      “Some thanes journeyed thrice that far to Laxintone,” Tuck remonstrated soberly.  
      “Thirty miles? Why, so it is!” John Little announced loudly, grinning with feigned surprise as though revealing some magnificent secret. “Well, best get going with you, then!”  
      The Saracen crept behind de Rainault; Robert had hardly time to note the man's presence before his hands were seized. Scathlock kept the knife attentive to his throat, as the sombre outlaw — whose name Robert could never recall — tended to his wrists. The silent wolfshead touched his cuffs and paused for a moment, as he felt there what few men would have noticed. Then he slipped deft fingers into the Sheriff's right sleeve and withdrew the small knife from the wrist-sheath there. His smile was quicksilver as he pocketed the blade, and Scathlock whistled.  
      “Tricky one, ain't ye, _Sheriff?_ ” If Scathlock had named him _Satan_ , it could have sounded no more scornful.  
      The Saracen bound Robert's wrists, turning and twisting the lashings quickly in an unfamiliar pattern. Then the man moved on to Gisburne, whose teeth were set hard, his face both pale and pink with fury. “Don't touch me, you...you godless _savage!_ ”  
      Of _course_ the transparent opportunist would speak so before a crowd of cowering priests, especially with Hugo looking on. But the Saracen remained calm; he was so serene that de Rainault wondered if he'd understood a word of Gisburne's insult — or anything else that had been said, for that matter.  
      When they were both incapacitated to the heathen's liking, the man moved on and pulled open Laxintone's stables; once the doors opened, horses were swiftly brought. The Sheriff studied ugly Saxon features keenly, as Hood clasped hands in turn with ten men wearing Nottingham uniform, ten he didn't recognise. They were given steeds and, after what doubtless amounted to endless professions of friendship and other Saxon rot, they mounted and stepped through the bailey lightly, then vanished through Laxintone's gates.  
      The remaining, repulsively familiar outlaws now sprang into action, unchecked; the priests had fallen back, and the people stood well aside, watching from a distance as their lawless little pets worked. For a moment, the Sheriff dared hope that the notion of walking had been an invention, to embellish the tales later told. But John, Tuck, Marion, and the half-wit waved farewell to the others, as they walked or rode accompaniment to the cart that trundled on ahead. What remained at last were three horses, and Hood, Scarlet, and the Saracen mounted them, and the Sheriff watched impotently as they drew sharp steel — prickers, to prod the officials along. Scathlock even goaded Gisburne with the knight's own sword.  
      They'd no choice but to start walking, and the Sheriff was gloomily grateful that his own dark features didn't show the flush of humiliation. The delighted people of Laxintone followed them far as the portcullis, cheering the outlaws heartily; Gisburne, of course, went positively porphyric with rage. De Rainault could see the shadows of Sherwood in the distance as they passed the gates, and the forest no longer beckoned with seductive secrets, but stood forbidden, again a dappled danger as the sun began to set. Already Robert's arms behind his back pained him, and it seemed that the first mile was the worst even of a journey on foot; pain began to manifest everywhere, in his parched smoke-hoarsened throat and empty belly and cramped legs idle too long. The temperature was dropping quickly, and the beautiful cloak that draped so finely over a saddle fluttered open uselessly as winds blew against him, cutting easily through his silks. Gisburne walked almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him, and he could hear the knight — who was even more poorly dressed for the cold English night — shudder with each aeolian assault.  
      He was certain they'd been pacing through the dusk for hours when the men turned the horses, but as they diverted to the same Sherwood road used earlier that day, the Sheriff sighed listlessly, realising that over half the journey still remained. There was no beauty amidst those trees now, only defeat, and what seemed the sly arboreal observance of it. His thoughts tangled in his mind, thicker than the underbrush that threatened to trip his blistering feet with every step, and the silence set his nerves a-quiver, though he'd never admit it. Herne knew he was accustomed to marching through frigid English evenings, and yet the forest-god apparently knew _other_ things about the Sheriff, for Hood ought never have spoken aloud such names by mere coincidence. Robert's dark eyes flickered up to the trees defiantly; that he should be forced by Herne's Son through the forest-god's realm was a mockery he'd not expected, even from Herne. Perhaps the wolfsheads, too, would one day discover how the god toyed with them, made poppets and playthings of them for his own amusement. But a violent wind surged through the trees, setting branches to sway with creaks like heavy beams; at the sound of his nightmares given life, he shuddered and quelled his thoughts.  
      The same winds that thieved his courage then fled with his dignity as well; he no longer tried to pretend lordly aloofness, as shivering took him with the same cruelty as it had claimed Gisburne miles before. He shook from undeniable hunger and chill and found difficulty even in thinking, once the sun had fully set, taking light and warmth from the day and leaving only the sickly moon. His laugh to himself was soft and rasping as he realised what that growing orb would become: the Hunter's Moon. He stumbled beneath it, lifting a foot and then placing it down again, one before the other, each step before the next, nothing more immediate in his thoughts than the need to keep moving. Minutes passed in this misery-making manner, then an hour, perhaps two or even three; it was a small eternity spent under threat of Sherwood, before they finally emerged from the forest and left behind its whirring, rasping, macabre sounds of night. At last he could see the hulking shadow of Nottingham Castle in the distance — a further distance than he would have liked, but within his sights all the same. And after so long in silence, the Sheriff nearly jumped when Robin i'the Hood spoke.  
      “We're leaving you now,” he said, with peculiar gentleness that rather contradicted the blades still facing them. “You're nearer Nottingham than Laxintone, so there's no use turning back. Especially not through Sherwood.”  
      “You expect us to make our way in the dark?” Gisburne asked dully.  
      “Animals can find the lair, can't they? What else're you lot?” Scathlock replied. He bared teeth to his companions in a wicked grin. “Bleatin’ goat an' a trottin' pup, I say.”  
      Then the three, with no further mockery or fanfare, turned their horses as one and galloped away into the forest's embrace. After only a few moments, they could no longer be seen.  
      Of course, something so trivial as the outlaws' disappearance didn't prevent Gisburne from running forward, tottering awkwardly from his bound hands, shouting equally foolish insults after the outlaws. Worse still it was when Gisburne turned back to him, the final blow in a day gone utterly awry. For the Sheriff had met the knight on an October night, 'neath a Hunter's Moon, when the youth had bristled with ire, determined that his complete lack of wits shouldn't stop him from battling the entire world. In the strange moment, it seemed that nothing had changed, that Gisburne had simply lingered in some Normandy copse all these years, still miserable and furious and silvering beneath cold light.  
      The unwelcome phantasmagoria shook the Sheriff fully awake. “ _Untie me_ , you shrill buffoon!” he screamed, suddenly infuriated, and to hell with _all_ of them, lords and priests, knights and Normans and especially the hellion _Saxons!_ “Or will you leave us both trussed like hunt-trophies while you shout obscenities into empty woods??”  
      Gisburne clomped over to him and obediently began picking at the Saracen's overly skilled handiwork, but his temper was no less frayed for all that the knots held fast. “It isn't _my_ fault tha—”  
      “Isn't it?” de Rainault cried, stamping chilled feet one by one as he stood waiting. “When you ran from a castle keep on _fire_ —”  
      “But _you_ pulled away!”  
      “And left me to that insane _beast_ —”  
      “ _You_ sent _me_ into the thick of it alone! Right where that Little giant was waiting! When nothing was actually a-flame... _there_ ,” he said, pulling free the final knot without any excess of gentleness. The bonds fell from the Sheriff's wrists, and he rubbed warmth back into them. He could still feel the flesh, thank — his own constitution, he supposed, because he'd be damned if he'd thank _any_ god after the day's debacle—  
      “By Christ!” exclaimed Gisburne impatiently; only then did he realise that the deputy was still tied. He stepped close to the knight and took his wrists, bitterly grateful for the antagonism which kept the touch from awkwardness. By instinct de Rainault shook his own wrist; of course, the dagger usually stored there had vanished, and he was forced to pull at the gordian bindings instead of slicing them through.  
      Finally they both stood freed, and tired, and miserable; having expended too much energy already in useless shouting, they simply turned for home, lacking anything else they could do. Another ten miles still separated them and the castle, and the walk was long, wearying, and silent; there was nothing remaining of the tentative, gossamer understanding that had bound them on the morning's ride. De Rainault lifted the hood of his cloak and held it firmly closed as they walked, and he brooded upon the day's events.  
      There'd been an insanely dangerous brilliance to the wolfsheads' plan; it seemed unbelievable that the disruption of an entire shire-court should depend upon something so simple, but there it was: they had staked their plot upon the knowledge that men of high position — ensconced in official business, heads swimming with the needful — would never bother looking into their subordinates' faces. Robert gritted his teeth at the realisation that he and Gisburne had brought the disease of villainy right into Laxintone Castle with them, that the criminals had _followed_ them, like vermin infesting their very persons. Worse still it was, to have such a thing happen at _Laxintone_ , which King John held so dear, where security for the autumn shire-court should have been impenetrable. He couldn't even follow through on his own policy and arrest de Byrkin for the disaster; the lord had had no idea of the outlaws' features and would never have placed Nottingham's Guard under Laxintone's. He hadn't been told that such disguise was even possible—  
      —because the outlaws were supposed to be _dead!_  
      So, the rabble had left Nottinghamshire after all, giving truth at least to some of the rumour he'd heard; they were fanning out over England, spreading their poisonous influence, and that meant he could no longer be certain of how many outlaws ran with Nottinghamshire's most infamous band. That Robin had bid those unfamiliar men an apparent farewell boded well, but the wolfsheads could surely expect their numbers to rise after the caper they'd just staged. Because in a month, or two, when the story had traveled a few miles and been run to death over ale cups, the Sheriff knew that few would recall any of the words spoken this day. They wouldn't relay how the shire-officials had faced deadly danger stoically, and even defiantly; they wouldn't point out that, had Robin's band just obeyed the laws from the beginning, the freed-folk could have attended the moot themselves, made changes lawfully instead of murdering and thieving in the woods. And no-one would recognise the worst injustice of it all, that de Rainault's autumn-long efforts to gain favour, with _gifts_ of crop and cloth, had been undermined by outlaws who simply _stole_ from the rich to court the poor.  
      No, the shire-folk would tell their tales with glee, and greedy eyes would gleam over the apparent scene: the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and his deputy escorted out of Laxintone Castle at weapons-point by their own guardsmen. Oh, de Rainault understood all too well, the illusion of outright rebellion that the outlaws might well have created here. And that surely was the ultimate purpose of such shenanigans, was it not? Hadn't he heard the wolfsheads' nigh-evangelical speech-making for years already, their ignorance of their own people's history, their desire to return all England to some egalitarian Saxon idyll that, in truth, had never existed? He knew, from long study and longer experience, that Saxon justice had never been dispensed without swords, that the only points of argument those hot-blooded, reckless animals could employ were those of arrow-tip and knife. He groaned inwardly, remembering again the confiscation of their own weapons; he could only hope that none of the priests had seen the Saracen take his wrist-knife — a weapon he'd never cleared with the court, and which would surely open up this matter of arms _again_ to endless debate.  
      The ultimate fate of the documents, the potential chaos that had followed their departure, he could only guess. Hood had ripped the judgments in fourths and dropped the papers at his feet; had de Byrkin possessed the wit to do so, he could have sent the pages for repair and thus preserved the verdicts. But it was an improbable sliver of hope, and far more likely that the panicked de Byrkin had dispatched a messenger to Newark the moment their little party had disappeared from sight. The King could even now be raging a raving tantrum over the afternoon's _contretemps_ ; that the Sheriff's quick thinking had kept Lord John and Lady Joan safe, that no-one in Laxintone had been killed or even harmed, would not save Robert from the royal paranoia. Indeed, the Sheriff's sharp mind, even the fact of his own survival, might bear witness against him; the King had been known to suspect conspiracy for far less. The Sheriff would swallow poison before dangling from John's noose — especially for such an accusation, of aiding men who taught the applause of lawlessness and the laud of criminality—  
      —and Christ, how many opportunities had they _missed_ , to unravel the wolfsheads' scheme?! The absent messenger — perhaps accosted and thieved en route to the meeting-place — the “soldiers” who neither chattered to each other nor crossed themselves upon entering Sherwood, even the disorderly mess of Laxintone's reception, in which a few of the bustling “servants” had seemed to have no idea of their duties' proper performance. He wondered who else had been involved, those he might not have even noticed. Had any of the priests known? Had any of the Laxintone guards looked the other way? Had even the grooms who took their horses been play-acting at respect—  
      At the thought of horses, he recalled their mounts with fresh consternation; Gisburne would be hysterical without that destrier of his. But de Byrkin would keep the beasts well-stabled, and also gather any of the officials' possessions that still remained; any property abandoned in Laxintone would return to Nottingham eventually. And _horses_ were the least of his difficulties with Gisburne; the knight had already behaved as a bothersome canker, with his poor judgment and impulsive stupidity, with his knowing nods to Hugo and his futile scold to the Saracen and his shrieking to the outlaws' backsides. It was unpardonable that he should leave Robert to face this fiasco alone, but any chance the Sheriff might've had to convince his deputy of Nottingham's virtues had shattered in the crowd's malicious mirth, when Scathlock had gestured to the “lapdog.”  
      On and on his thoughts reeled, and more and more morose he became as new facets of the disaster were revealed to his scrutiny, more reasons to despise and despair at the outcome. In the end, he was able to decide upon only three resolves; they hardened in his mind as Nottingham grew closer and their steps quicker, until finally, the quiet, half-frozen pair reached the outer walls. Two guardsmen at the gate, issuing the challenge, received a fiery glare in reply that spoke of Robert de Rainault's arrival more clearly than any answer could have.  
      The Sheriff's first order was dangerous, but there was escape available to them both if it came to that; it was a risk he'd have to take. “I want these gates sealed behind us. No-one is to enter or depart Nottingham until further notice.”  
      “The market-day, m'lo—”  
      “Is cancelled!” he barked. Then, remembering de Byrkin's solicitude, he amended the order slightly. “If anyone requests to speak to me, you will find me or Sir Guy to deal with it directly. Do _not_ lift these gates without command from one of us.”  
      “Yes, my lord,” the pair answered in unison.  
      “Now give over your swords,” he said coldly.  
      The soldiers blinked warily at the strange request, but meekly set their torches in the outer wall's grips, then unfastened and handed over their weapons; Gisburne seemed almost to revive at the touch of a sword. Then, as commanded, they again took up their lights and escorted the lords into Nottingham's courtyard. The Sheriff heard the satisfying creak of the heavy gate behind them, and when it shut, he turned again to the two unfortunates.  
      “If even a single person leaves this castle in the next day, I will hang every person remaining within these walls. Is that clear?”  
      They gulped and nodded; de Rainault took those nods for cowed assent. Then he turned to Gisburne and spoke softly. “I need the guards' duty-roster of the last thirty-six hours. Go get it, _now_. Take the whole volume if you must.” The deputy's anger flared up again, but the Sheriff's look was almost apologetic. He knew the knight's half-frozen exhaustion; he knew that within range lay warmth and relief. But he couldn't enter the guards' station himself without raising alarm, nor could he trust any other with the request. Gisburne, to his credit, swallowed whatever whine he'd been about to spout and walked quickly enough to be a run. His long stride led him across the wide bailey in moments, and perhaps five minutes had passed before he emerged with the book securely tucked beneath one arm. The Sheriff nodded to him and, at last, gestured to the hall's entrance.  
      He'd no idea of the time when they finally entered the fire-warmed keep, and he didn't care, yelling the servants awake from their slumber round the hearth-fire and demanding a warm bath, hot wine, warm clothing, and hot food in abundance, in whatever order they could be procured. In very short order indeed, he and Gisburne sat at table, wrapped in woolens and sipping warming hypocras, which flowed into them like liquid sunlight. When they could again speak, the knight stared at the book upon the table, his voice dull and lifeless with exhaustion.  
      “My lord, I don't understand.”  
      The knight really should have that writ somewhere upon his person, de Rainault thought; it would save them all a great deal of time. But his answer was even and calm. “We weren't informed at the gate of any trouble, were we, Gisburne?”  
      It was his habit to let the knight figure things out, but when a few moments brought no understanding — save a shake of the head in the negative — he decided to make his meaning plain; it was far too late to be mentoring the man. “Did you see any signs of struggle in the barracks?”  
      “No, my lord.” Guy's expression was slack with weariness.  
      Robert took a long swallow of salving liquor before answering. “And the uniforms were clean. Unmarked. How did the outlaws get them?”  
      He saw then the same progression of wretched emotions in Guy's features that he'd endured himself hours before: startlement, sinking fear, contemplation, betrayal, fury. The knight gripped his sword unthinkingly, and Robert could see he now understood the full import of this day's work.  
      “What are we going to do?”  
      Robert might have laughed at the supposition in Guy's unthinking _we_ , had he any energy remaining to do so. “We put the guardsmen involved to the ordeal.”  
      “And then?”  
      The Sheriff stood and turned away. Why should Gisburne bother to ask such a thing, except to subtly needle him into addressing the question lying between them, at the worst possible time? Well, there was only one way to make the evening's downfall absolute, and so he pressed more wine to dry lips before speaking. “ _And then,_ Gisburne. What concern is it of yours? You intend resignation, do you not?”  
      The man behind him hesitated, but when the response came, it was steelier than the sword. “I _do,_ my lord.”  
      “I can't grant it. Not now.”  
      Gisburne stood furiously; he heard the pounding of an empty wine-cup and the scrape of the bench. “You've no right to refuse—you...you've no _authority_ in this matt—“  
      “I _know_ that, you blustering dunce!” Both men panted for breath at an argument they were too exhausted to even begin, much less see to its dire end. But Robert wanted this day concluded, with _all_ of its odious duties; postponing his required assent would gain him nothing, and to attempt interference in a Church affair would open up his castle to all sorts of clerical meddlement. It was the last thing he wanted, over one knight or one hundred, it didn't matter. “But you'll not leave here under breach of contract. That _is_ within my right.”  
      “I've done everything—”  
      “Not yet!” Anger flared at the memory of needless humiliation, founded solely on the failures of years past; the Sheriff turned on the man with a violent shout. “You will _eradicate_ the heathen infestation of this shire! I'll not have these people left to pagan _revolutionaries_ while you chase after Saracens in the Holy Land!”  
      Guy's dumbfounded shock registered slowly as the implication set in. “Then, I'm to—”  
      “You're to fulfill the terms of your employment, Gisburne,” the Sheriff ordered icily.  
      “You want me to do in eight months what no-one has done in six _years?!_ ”  
      De Rainault shrugged with apparent indifference, as though what he commanded was simpler than sipping wine. “And then you're free to go.”  
      “It's impossible!”  
      “Then _make_ it possible. Or ask the blessings of your _God_ to deliver his would-be _Crusader!_ Shouldn’t your soldier-saint intercede for you?”  
      Robert slammed his wine-cup upon the table and, having destroyed any possibility of sharing board or bath with the impossible idiot, he stormed from the hall to find his chambers, grasping a torch as he went. When he reached the vast room, it was cold and unguarded; he didn't have enough strength remaining to care. He simply plunked the torch into a sconce and then flung himself onto the pile of blankets; sleep claimed him with swift mercy.  
      But that grace was neither tender nor enduring; it was only a few hours later, troubled hours of dream-wisps and whispered words and heat so intense it wrung sweat from his flesh, that the Sheriff bolted upright with a gasp. For a moment he was relieved to be awake, until he remembered the prior day and wished immediately to return to slumber which, though irksome, held no mortal danger in its depths. But he rose, obedient to cock-crow from the courtyard flocks, and began preparing himself to depart his chambers, scrubbing at his face with cold water; a sudden sting at his neck made him wince, and the mirror showed him a sight to ensure his fury before he'd even started the day: a gash to the skin, dark with dried blood, the whiskers around it cut. Scathlock's knife had been well-whetted, it seemed. He pressed oil of clove to the wound and peered again into the mirror. The shadowy face looking back at him was smudge-eyed and seamed with weariness and anger — a bearded, hoary goat, who'd spent too much time moping about the outlaws and not nearly enough time in their elimination.  
      Afire with determination, he left the chamber to face whatever consequences might await. His first order was to summon both the barber and Gisburne to him; from the latter, he learned that the entire complement of guards who'd stood watch two days prior now awaited interrogation in the dungeons. He nodded at the information and ignored Gisburne's pouting; he'd enough rage of his own to occupy him. Then he sat and awaited the barber's ministrations, noting that the man's hands were shaking in a somewhat concerning fashion.  
      “What's the matter with you?” he asked testily.  
      “N-nothing, my lord,” the old man said, but his youthful assistant hadn't yet learned to hold his tongue, and replied what they were both truly thinking. “Castle's locked up, m'lord, an' all a-flutter—”  
      The man grew wide-eyed and clamped a hand over the boy's mouth. “Please pardon 'im, my lord; he don't know—”  
      “My lord!”  
      The Sheriff turned to see a guardsman loitering at the door. “Well?”  
      “There's a man at the gate. _Demanding_ entrance.”  
      De Rainault looked immediately at Gisburne, who nodded and strode from the room. Then he turned back to the trembling barber. “Get on with it, then! I want the beard gone.”  
      “All of it?”  
      The Sheriff marked out with his fingers the shape to be carved and then sat calmly while the man prepared his implements. The barber had just made the first scrape of razor against flesh when Gisburne returned, looking perturbed.  
      “He bears a message from Newark, my lord.”  
      Involuntarily de Rainault jumped; the old man jumped back as well, none too spryly, pulling back the razor-knife in alarm.  
      “I told him you were currently...indisposed. He's under guard of two of my men. Knights,” he added hastily, conveying his trust of those men as subtly as he could.  
      De Rainault nodded, and the barber resumed his work, and it was likely only accident when announcement of the impatient messenger's entrance startled them both and knocked the sharp instrument against his neck, over the same flesh that Scathlock's dagger had damaged. But it made Robert realise the folly of trying to behave as though he might be safe anywhere, even within his own dwelling. He could no longer assume that any apparent mistake was unintended — especially when the clumsy varlet in question held a blade near his throat!  
      After running the butcher out of his hall, he bundled a cloth impatiently over the gash and whirled upon the whelp, who'd introduced himself as “Hubert de Giscard”; it was a ridiculous name for an odd-looking old/young man, who could have passed as a page-boy but for his thinning hair. At the herald's pompous request for privacy — a petty vengeance for his wait, no doubt — the Sheriff nudged Gisburne. “Go,” he ordered gently. The wolfsheads had barely noticed the knight the day before; Robert could hope that King John had overlooked him as well.  
      Then the Sheriff girded his resolve and glared furiously, still holding the rag to his bleeding throat. “Well?” he demanded.  
      The messenger watched Gisburne go with a smirk before turning the same noxious expression upon de Rainault. “I'll come directly to the point. The King wants you to put an end to the wolfshead. Robin Hood. _Immediately_.”  
      “Immediately?” de Rainault asked, masking his hatred with liberal application of sarcasm. “ _Excellent_. How?” Let John suggest a suitable stratagem, if he took such sudden interest in the outlaw's demise!  
      “Oh, the method hardly concerns him,” answered the young man dismissively, which de Rainault instantly translated to signify that John had no better military strategy than he usually did — which was to say, none at all, all the better to distance himself from defeat and receive acclaim for victory. “What does concern him is that the name 'Robin Hood' has become a symbol of resistance to the authority and governance of King John."  
      De Rainault wondered if he was growing wiser, or the messengers increasingly stupid. "I am _aware_ of th—"  
      But de Giscard raised a hand. “Let me finish. You are _solely_ responsible for the situation—”  
      'Twas exactly as de Rainault had expected, thus far; doubtless the King would next demand that the rents be compensated by Nottingham's treasury. It was an expensive blow, but at least not a lethal one.  
      “—and the King will tolerate it no longer. Unless this wolfshead dies within the month, you are to be stripped of your office and sent to fight the King's enemies in Normandy. Your successor's already been chosen: Richard FitzGilbert.”  
      That John had figured out a clever plan of any sort came as shock enough; that he should author this masterful – if repugnant – little subterfuge was stunning. FitzGilbert's meek incompetence was wholly unsuited to the Sheriffship, and Robert knew that John had no love for the man. It seemed the King had determined death in battle to be an acceptable punishment for Laxintone, and death by wolfshead FitzGilbert's alternative to the scaffold.  
      “Then I shall endeavour to obey,” the Sheriff answered mockingly.  
      De Giscard smiled. “Oh, you will obey, my lord. Or lose everything. Do you understand?”  
      The Sheriff could only stare and respond with a bile he was too numbed to fully express. “Oh yes, de Giscard. I understand you. You've made yourself perfectly clear.”  
      “Then I wish you good hunting,” concluded the messenger, and finished his insincere salutation with a bow and the salute, “ _Sheriff_.” His obvious implication – _for now_ – remained unspoken as he took his leave.  
      The Sheriff gripped his mirror as though to look into it, to push de Giscard's words behind the gleam of his own fine visage. But the plate shook in a trembling hand, the recalled age and weariness of his features portending ill for his chances of surviving a Normandy battlefield. The wolfsheads were not so clever, but they were favoured, connected to the people, and to that god whose power came in the ruination of anyone he chose. The outlaws could hide in Sherwood for the eighth month's entirety, wassailing the Sheriff's impending doom, while de Rainault scoured the forest by day — his soldiers frightened beyond their wits and unable to draw their blades — and lay awake nights, to keep the Hunter's glamour from his mind, fog cascading over the chant of _who is the greatest enemy_ —  
      It was that enemy, the one looking always over his shoulder, that de Giscard had now brought to his full attention. He'd been accused of godlessness before; de Rainault only wished he could enjoy such luxury. Perhaps it had been the machinations of a mocking Christ, weary of hearing his name blasphemed and his masses mocked, or a Christian soldier who'd begged relief for an earth-bound knight, or a Pagan spirit who'd decided to set his “chosen” against each other, to gain some depraved gladiatorial delight from dispensing of one or the other.  
      One fact was certain: the vanquished was not going to be _him_ ; he would not grant Herne and his ragged bastard that privilege. Perhaps they already knew of the regal reprisal commanded, the forces moving against them even now, by whatever ungodly visions told them such names as _Castleton_. Maybe they mocked him, for weaving his own doom about himself, for he'd given Gisburne commands intended to secure the knight's perpetual residence in Nottingham and now found himself ensnared in his own schemes, enjoined to kill one god-son and then give his deputy to the service of another.  
      So be it; they would taste the bitter harvest of their reckless deeds. He would find a way to cut them down, to pluck them from beneath Sherwood's trees like so much rotting fruit, and spite the ruinous Hunter beyond recompense.  
      “Hunting,” he murmured to himself, recalling de Giscard's parting shot.  
      The answer hit him then, a shot into his awareness. It cleared away the miasma of looming defeat, the destruction awaiting him at the befuddling hands of a mist-wielding demon.  
      That word was his chance, to finally revenge the vile spirit of England who'd made of his _life_ a torturous sport. The word - _wyrd_ \- tore again from his wounded throat and, feverish with fresh excitement, the Sheriff of Nottingham no longer noticed the sting of blood.  
      “ _Hunting!_ ”


	9. Ink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings. The thirty-first day of October, A.D. 1201, Nottinghamshire.

"There is only as much space, only as much time,  
Only as much desire, only as many words,  
Only as many pages, only as much ink  
To accept all of us at light-speed  
Hurrying into the Promised Land  
Of oblivion that is waiting for us sooner or later."  
―Dejan Stojanović

"Most wondrous is my magic power:  
For with one color I can paint;  
I'll make the devil a saint this hour,  
Next make a devil of a saint."  
―Jonathan Swift, from _On Ink_

      Heavy cloth smothers him, the thick brocade tangling him in a shroud. His fingers twist clumsily into the coverlets and finally throw them off; his leaden torso frantically expands and fills, his breath the shrill wheeze of a bellows. His hands, sticky with heat, fumble for the cup at his bedside, but the vessel remains empty, its sleep- _tisane_ finished hours before. The canopy wavers in his unsteady gaze, and the candle's flame leaps as though waving a greeting, the wall beyond it glistening with a piercingly bright halo. He has slept a few hours at most.  
      His damp skin, wrung out beneath its layers, now chills in the night wind; he tugs uncomfortably at the shirt sticking to his back, his thoughts still sluggish, his body pained. He wants to throw off the heavy gear, to drown his thoughts in costly drink, to savour some hard-muscled man stroking his strains from him before leaving him to solitude and slumber. But his tongue lies dry and thick, the valley of his bed vacant; the threat of suffocation still shrieks in his ears, and he is too weary for orders, too fearful to drowse.  
      He desires. He _needs_. His resultant resolve is simple, made with little finesse: at this day's end, he will revel in his due rewards — the wine he has refused, the dishes he has pushed away, the unsated lusts he has spurned. He will stuff his belly and stoke his blood and shuttle his griefs into pliant flesh. He will drift from elated exhaustion into mindless repose, and he will dream of _nothing!_  
      He need only kill Herne's Son, and the riling, riddling voice haunting his sleeps will cease.  
      Sharp shafts of pain stab his feet as they impact the floor; his stiff legs stamp a clumsy lurch towards his writing-desk. His other preparations have taken too much time already, and he has postponed this last for long enough. Though his plan surely cannot fail – it has been too carefully made, too secret – he ought to finish this small task before departing; by the stars visible through his window, he calculates roughly two candlemarks until dawn. His head swims with the effort of focusing upon the skies, and he realises he cannot remember the last meal he took. He will not request one now; the threat of a final repast sends his stomach reeling.  
      He sags into the chair and turns to the desk, hangs upon it and stares, and its elegant instruments suddenly recall to him a day many years ago, when a slab of honey-hued wax had sufficed for parchment, a wand of elder-tree pith for pen. In his muzzled mind, he again touches them with curious hands, lifts the stick, molds it to the bends of his fingers; how dull it had been, to trace and re-trace familiar letters over so many hours! Once, armed with the wooden pen, he’d occupied himself by making his own marks upon the tablet, began ringing tiny words round the margins: _ad, ade, ab_. He'd just reached _abbé_ when the instructor had noticed his unassigned initiative and snatched the plank away. A scolding announcement had followed, a reproach that pride had no place in God's work, and Robert's protest had been met by a snapped command and threat of the rod's still-harsher snap. He'd sullenly thumbed out the words and then traced the _abecé_ 's fifth entry _ad nauseam_ under the clod's watchful eye. So he had learned that knowledge was best hidden unless there was profit to be had from it, and had later confirmed, through years of experience, that the words “God's work” usually preceded some tedious stupidity.  
      Decades have passed since, and he is master here. His desk is supplied with costly vellums and first-feather quills; he writes whatever words he will, can powder the result with fine-ground silver if it pleases him. Dextrously he prepares the fine implements, mixes a dropper of sweet oil into a desiccated crust of ink. The aromatic bite of lavender sharpens his senses and rouses his gritty eyes to clarity. His mind knows its work, and the tools to complete it stand ready. But he sits silently, again struggling to begin a single, simple word, for the same syllables – all these years later – now carry a far heavier burden: if he mars this surface with his mark, if he scribes the farewells that have festered unexpressed these long nights, then his deed will spell an admission of possible failure, casting an aspersion of cowardice over the candlemarks to follow.  
      And his bold declamations of years past will allow no retraction now. He has scorned and mocked the churchmen's rhetoric, asked loudly how long a man could reasonably live, even brushed aside warnings of danger with a dismissive hand that suggested life and death were all the same. Such a man would hardly bother to plan ahead of the inevitable, as though his final words could be any more significant than his first, as though any recipient would bother with the blather that accompanied a heavy purse. Bitterly he curses everyone blameworthy within reach of his darting anger: the King who issues preposterous orders with such rude conceit, the stag-headed “greatest enemy” whose whispers wind through his dreams, and Hugo, _especially_ Hugo, his pathetic part-sibling, whom he holds entirely responsible for his current wakefulness and hand-wringing over a writing-desk!  
      Robert de Rainault rests his head upon a cradling hand, his glare lingering dully upon the tabletop. Finally he allows that his departure from England, however improbable – _impossible_ , damn them all! – will leave Hugo to the guidance of his God, which amounts to no help at all. He is still Sheriff, still capable of reasonable thought; this his pen's bronze edge presses into his fingertip, a sharp reminder of resolve. It is thus steeled that he shoves away distraction and – before he can retreat entirely and return to his bed – jabs pen into inkwell and begins to write, advancing stroke by stroke upon the odious task at hand.

_Abbot Hugo de Rainault, Saint Mary's Abbey._

_I won't waste what little time is left to me, conveying the same details which exultant rumourmongers will bring you soon enough. You may confirm with the messenger that I am now relieved of my office and sent to execution by way of exile, and so I write you urgently to issue a final command, which I implore you not to ignore despite its source: Go to Nottingham at once, and make obeisance to the new Sheriff. For once, Hugo, do something intelligent, and act for your future instead of praying about it!_

_My castellan retains my testament and shall read and execute the document upon your arrival. Most of my possessions will be divided between you and my deputy, though if you notice Gisburne looking rather too pleased by his sudden fortune, you have my blessing, indeed my request, to show him the back of your hand before any coin touches his. For your own sake, display good cheer, and embrace my successor with the Church’s open support before retreating to your abbey._

_I'll give no further advice, which you would likely disregard in any case, nor will I expound upon obvious familial bonds and sentiments, which these many years of patronage have surely proven. And no Masses, Hugo, for your God’s sake. Your parishioners would abandon the faith en masse at the possibility of encountering their Sheriff in the celestial realms. If there is any power in divine petition, then employ it for yourself and your brethren, to ward against this monstrous madness that afflicts us all. I leave you to your devotions, and sign this missive—_

_By my hand, the thirty-first day of October, A.D. 1201,_  
 _Robert de Rainault_

      From habit he nearly follows his name with formal titulary, until he recalls that it might well be stripped from him by that “monstrous madness” currently raving upon the King’s throne. Thirty days have passed since the messenger's charge; the eighth month has nearly expired, and Robert has dared tell no-one the true stakes of this day’s hunt, for the men will shirk their duties all too eagerly if they discover how the Sheriff will pay for their failure. He has hidden his impatience and conveyed no urgency; instead, he’s issued carefully-timed orders and gathered his foresters to him at a painstaking pace, ensuring that neither their sudden disappearance from Sherwood nor any increased traffic upon the Nottingham roads can hint at some grand scheme underway. He has fumed and fretted behind his chamber doors, holding to cold composure outside; he has pined for the paired comforts of wine and sleep, to balm the morbid speculations that have shattered his poise and left him shivering through the night’s small hours.  
      His wait has at last borne the fruit of his agonies: yesterday morning, a completed assemblage of foresters and guardsmen had convened to learn their orders, while two hostages from Wickham had made their unwilling way to Nottingham Castle. The serfs’ shock spoke well for the success of his secrecy, their ignorance surely shared by Robin Hood and his pestilent gang. It remained only to dispatch the soldiers, which the Sheriff promptly did, dividing them into small groups that departed every few hours throughout the prior afternoon and evening. Anyone spying armed men upon the roads would have seen only the usual watch-parties scouting village borders, never suspecting that they stowed away in Wickham's hovels instead of relieving patrols or returning to barracks. The ambush awaiting the outlaws is thus perfectly prepared; it waits only the lord’s arrival.  
      Robert quickly rolls his completed letter and binds it with ribbon – not trusting sealing-wax to his unsteady grip – then selects another parchment. His next task promises a certain grim amusement, since he is certain that three persons will cluster round the message intended for only one. His prior letter had proceeded at a plodding pace, hampered by the careful expression of awkward and complex affections; his hand now swiftly compensates, goaded by righteous indignation and repeatedly offended sensibilities:

_Édouard de Rainault_  
 _Hernetot, Manoir de Cléville, région Kaem_  
 _Basse-Normaundie._

_In your letters I see the sanctimonious influences of your wife and your brother who, conveniently, will not be participating in the bloodshed which they so fervently endorse. You ask me for my blessing; were I to give it, I would be as stupid and hypocritical as they. Someone must speak some honest sense to you._

_Since you believe this foolhardy Crusade superior to other forms of carnage, I shall tell you the difference: in the Holy Land, your foe is determined to slay you, that his zeal for slaughter should make him dearer to his God; he will therefore grant no mercy and accept no surrender. In your grand delusion, you assure me that the enemy shall perish, that your righteousness will preserve you. If devotion saved lives, dear brother, there would be no martyrs._

_You've completed your service; why scorn that fortune now and seek a wretched death? Can you not be content to strive after Heaven like other men, in the treads of a common life? Be a good father to your son, and tolerate the woman who bore him, and it will be enough. Are you certain that a pile of slain Saracens is the tribute your God demands, or do you sate wanderlust and a hunger for glory upon this “holy cause”?_

      He has always excelled in rhetoric, but even such facile exposition leaves his head aching now. He could let slip the reason he knows, all too well, the vicissitudes of divinities – how devoted service means nothing to these “gods,” who indulge cruel whims in weaving their worshippers’ fates. But there is no requirement, neither politics nor power, that anyone be told, and so Robert leaves his unwanted wisdom unwritten. Balefully he glares at the letter, suspecting his arguments already defeated; he knows his brother’s sickeningly sunny disposition well enough to see the pleasure of ridiculous resolution radiating from his pile of messages.

_If you are resolved to do this thing, then in reply I give you this advice: place your confidence in no-one, and keep a knife on your person always. Do not allow your faith to make you a fool._

      _Robert…_  
            ( _...go to hell!_ )  
      He pounds the heel of his hand into his forehead. On any other day, he could seek wine or massage or tonic-induced oblivion, until such torments again settled into the undisturbed deeps of his mind. Now, he touches the very edge of those memories, until a sting of pain forces the thoughts to fade; dawn is approaching, and time does not stop for useless recollection.

_I continue to hope that you'll tire of this idiocy, for the sake of your family if no-one else. Consider that your wife is unpleasant in both temper and visage and would not remarry easily—_

      _—with my sincerest greetings, Lady Isabel_ , he smirks, imagining the shrew's ejaculations. Perhaps his assessment – and her husband's laughter, despite glib reassurances that the remark was meant only in jest – would teach her the folly of reading Édouard's correspondence.

_—and that Nottingham Castle is a military fortification, not a nursery; children here are best utilised in the cook-pots._

      He can hear birds stirring, the whirring whispers of evening giving way to the twitters and chirps of rousing throats. There remains only a final instruction, and then a farewell — not only to his brother, but to another as well, who will wait patiently at Édouard's shoulder and insist upon hearing the letter that she cannot herself read. He hurries through the final passages.

_I will write you no further on this matter, for you have grown older, though evidently no wiser, and will do as you choose. One of my men also intends to take the cross, and should you both refuse to come to your senses, Hugo will send him to you. You may trust the strength of his arm, if not the speed of his wits._

_Tell our mother—_

      —tell her _what_ , he wonders wearily; what greeting, what farewell ought he to offer in the end – that all is forgiven? That her constancy has reconciled him to her deceptions? Even now he cannot write such falsehoods to blanket the conscience, nor will he stoop to requesting some explanation, some small confession, even a name that might bring some _destendre_ to the taut cordiality between them. But his mother has long endured his taciturn anger, and tends with her own hands the stones among which he might soon lie; in the end, he cannot move himself to break their stalemate with purposeless cruelty.

_Tell our mother that I wish to know her thoughts._

      He signs the letter without guile – for he must survive this day, to read any reply – and this time, certifies the document with titles and seal before binding it in the same manner as the last. Then he turns to a third page; he has written enough correspondence to the man these many years that one more letter should be no great burden. He touches ink to the pen, strikes the pen against the inkwell, but his hand hesitates, knocks the pen’s tip in absent repetition as though tapping out the rhythm of a song. At his window, the night exudes a cobalt phosphorescence, the brightening glow of twilight; it attracts his eyes, and he fixes a dull gaze upon this primordial almost-sunrise, a sight that would mean nothing to him if not weighted with the significance of finality.  
      That notion of sequence again recalls to him the first word he’d ever written, _ad_. To his child-mind, it had seemed an incantation, its rounded strokes full with meaning, its mystery fully revealed only by the other words ringing it. In the years that followed, the vellums unveiled still-greater magicks to his solemn attentions, teaching him that marks upon parchment could confound with befuddling force, that the forms and spaces of scribed words held power, for the smallest utterance, given a document's weight, could sway a mind to his will. But to work such enchantments, his thoughts must be carefully wrought, fully formed before shaped into sigil and sign, for the briefest hesitation could smudge a sentence or tear a page; a moment’s distraction could pluck the wrong word from his memory and fix in place some indelible error.  
      The Sheriff has no such clarity now, hovering uncertainly over his pen like some damned brood-hen. He has slept in coiffe and brigandine and so sits dressed, nearly ready for departure; his deputy neither requires further instruction nor warrants any correction. There seems no purpose to writing him at all, save a self-indulgent wish to have the final word, wedded to some dim notion of bonded fealty. But his Gisburne is a hired sword at heart, and such “service” holds nothing of kindred feeling, nor any loyalty save to wealth and ambition; he knows it all too well, has not told even his own second of the King’s command, not caring to witness Gisburne’s poorly-disguised delight at the imminent downfall of his depraved master.

 _Gisburne_ —

      His eyelids slump, and his shoulders tense themselves into whipcord as he continues. The unfolding message is both ill-conceived and poorly-written, but so accustomed has he become to Gisburne’s silent witness of his rantings that he cares little for style now. He can hardly explain to himself this intricate weaving of fate, whose pattern he cannot discern, whose knots he struggles now to unbind; what can he possibly make known to this man, who unwittingly stabs him with the pleasures and agonies of recollection, of _first_ and _last_ so hatefully conjoined? And what matter any words, once Guy dons his jewelled rings and then lifts the Sheriff's chain from his breast? Robert has no more answers to offer than did the child of eight, who dreamed of a luminous man without understanding why the shoulders he desperately grasped were both bare and beautiful…At last, the quill flutters from Robert's slackening fingers, and he presses lips and cheeks into the cup of his folded hands.  
      Gradually he realises that a languid sweetness permeates his slowing inhalations, at last recognises the hawthorn's beguiling scent. No such triviality should draw his attention, but the fragrance is strong, its presence strange; confused, he opens his eyes and stands. Twilight air settles upon his skin, a prickling mist warm like blood and desire. The canopy above and around him glimmers with soft streaming moonlight, silver sliding from glossy leaves and spilling to the forest floor. A luminous fog gathers on an outcropping above him, pours down and over him in a cool wash; he sighs, a brief smile brightening his spirits. But his pleasure fades as a formless shadow thrusts itself through the mist, then slowly resolves; more than any sight or scent, he _recognises_ this sickening thing that steps forward now, that _dares_ to show itself to him.  
      Hatred chokes him, so acutely that it sticks his shouts of accusation in his throat. He stokes rage through his eyes, feeds himself on feverish fury until the volatile silence breaks, in sounds of snapping twigs and cracking leaves. He listens keenly and hears a runner's wild footfalls; it is the winded panting of fearful flight, though he can sense no follower in pursuit. And he is startled when a dark-haired young man skids to a stop at his side, then steps forward without seeming to see him, all of his attention intent upon the dark creature set over them both.  
      Robert reaches out to seize the varlet and _demand_ recognition, but his vision clouds, and he totters over his outstretched arm; his eyes try to fix upon the unsought arrival, but cannot. Silenced by helplessness, he feels himself beset, whirled into confusion by some invisible grasp — until his disorientation resolves to reveal the world altered, for he no longer sees this man before him, but stands somehow _within_ him, steadying himself against a tree and gasping for breath after a narrow escape ( _escape from what? he has fled nothing!_ ). He touches strange hands to the unbound hair that falls over his shoulders, feels this form that shapes him anew ( _God!_ ); he is sharp and slim and shining in his youth.  
      Facing the Horned One’s intense stare, words are hurled forth from his lips, his bravado bold as a spear. _What do you want of me?_  
      A golden gaze, bewitching and vast, envelops him. _Your life. Your strength. The powers of light and darkness have always been with you. You have denied them!_  
      _What's your name?_ But Robert feels that some part of him knows, has somehow always known…  
      The deer-man’s answer fills him with dreadful awe. _When the Horned One possesses me, I am Herne the Hunter._  
      Herne! _But what must I do?_  
      _What your fate asks of you._ Again he glimpses a preternatural flash, those terrible-wonderful eyes boring into Robert as though his thoughts are tomes to be opened and read. _The time is near._  
      _The time? What time?!_  
      The Horned One responds without truly replying; the demand of his questioning is urgent. _Who is the greatest enemy?_  
      Torn between tumult and trust, he considers, looking around him as though the answer could be twined into a branch or tangled amidst a vine. At his feet lies a quiver of arrows, resting upon a staff of supple yew: an English longbow, unstrung. He has never wielded such a thing before ( _truly?_ ), but a bow could silence that unfathomable riddle, quiet every query that might follow, could free him ( _from Herne? but why?_ ). He reaches down, grips the rod and the thin snake of string coiled atop it. He holds the bow firmly, seizes the sinew’s end; a flash of pain bites into his fingertips, and with a cry he drops both string and shaft.  
      The weapon vanishes, but its wound remains, wildfire lashing his flesh. He no longer stands, but sits; when he makes to rise, he is unable to move. His wrists pull at leather straps, his ankles bound by rope, and the longer he remains trapped the more pain he realises. There is agony in his thudding heartbeat, pain knifing his sides with every rasping breath. His scalp is raw. His mouth oozes the taste of steel; he spits a wad of bitter blood and grit, realises what the gravel must be when his tongue scrapes the remnants of teeth. He tries to clench a fist; festering sores remain where his fingernails were. It hurts, it _hurts_ , and he cannot flee the shattered cage his own body has become, cannot even seize a knife to end it!  
      Instead he fights his bonds, he screams, he _needs_ ; he will bargain any words for a chance to solder these wounds, to somehow mend his mangled flesh, to wrench some semblance of life out of this stinking pit. His dimming gaze shows only iron and fire surrounding him; he can yell all he will; no succour will come. But a subtle motion brings the face of a youth to his notice, some scrap of guardsman peering through the door, whose imploring gaze does not flinch from the suppurating thing he has become. He forces open his ruined mouth to plead.  
      The boy nods; his eyes compel. _Speak_ , comes an urgent whisper, a sinuous temptation winding through the bars and into his battered ears. _Just tell me the truth…tell me the truth…_  
      **_Tell me!_**  
      Robert's head jerks up from the desk; his limbs’ convulsion knocks him off-balance. “Stop... _stop it!_ ” he moans. But the calm stone is deaf to his command; the sole reply it proffers is an echo: the sobbing of his gasps, the shriek of his hands over the desk. Only then does Robert reclaim command of his senses, realise he must have dozed and dreamed. He lifts his hands before his face and nods in relief to see the nails intact, then turns up his palms to examine them. Thick black fluid trickles ominously between his fingers, but there is neither pain nor evident wound, and a streak across his table leads a dark trail to the culprit: the inkwell, hurled from its case by his outburst.  
      He scrapes a rag over his palms and then takes the two bound scrolls between delicate fingertips, flinging them onto his bed and away from the spreading stain. The remaining parchments are soaked; nothing save his knight’s name remains discernible. He considers whether to begin again, but a hesitant tap on his door alerts him to a servant’s arrival, tells him there is no longer time. So he rises and follows the documents to his bed, lifting them both to lock away, then pauses as his thoughts race ahead of this moment. That a deaf and mocking God will never favour his poppet over his Son is certain. That there is danger from which he may never return, that even this most adroit scheme of his long and infamous career could already be doomed, he knows. And so he must consider that he may not get the chance to dispatch this correspondence, that someone else will handle these letters if he does not return. He will take the second, then, sending it to Normandy at once, and leave the missive for St. Mary’s secure in his case.  
      That being settled, he shouts confirmation to the door and then girds himself with belt and knife, pressing hand to waist for assurance that the knife is sheathed and ready; if all is lost, his blade will preserve him from the same sort of ordeal that memories have thrust into his dreams. Then his eyes flicker over the chamber, absorbing what could be his final sight of it. The ruined paper remains with its smeared words, an astringent exhalation of lavender and ink rising from the sopping pile; it might carry some meaning to his Gisburne, should the clod turn eyes and mind to its cipher. Gripping the hilt of his dagger, Robert quickly departs, slamming the door behind him; he is unafraid, he is adamantine, and only the door in its stone frame dares to offer its rattling rebuttal to that silently-professed imperturbability.

***

      Many years before, Robert had assessed King Richard as a swaggering, silk-swathed huckster whose charisma concealed dangerous designs; while his brother John was surely no less ruthless, he seemed to Robert more plainly so, and likely easier to manipulate for his undisguised ambition. Too late the Sheriff realised that he'd mistaken crude caprice for cunning, and later still – after the Prince had donned the King's battle-dented diadem – that he'd imagined determination in what could be more accurately dubbed derangement. After that epiphany, Robert preferred to support King John in the abstract, absenting himself from the castle with expeditious invention whenever a royal visit was announced. But now the King had obviously ridden at a hysterical kilter, reaching Nottingham Castle before even a whispered rumour could precede him, and Robert had no choice but to kneel before his lunatic liege, who clutched an opened parchment that looked all too familiar.  
      “De Rainault, I assigned you a _simple_ task.” John's whining voice seemed even more grating for Robert's long reprieve from it. “You've made of it a calamity! A _catastrophe!_ ” He held out the paper and shook it furiously. “I want to know the meaning of this!”  
      “My lord King—” he began. But his weak response was interrupted by an entrance that made him wince: the great hall's door opened and smacked against the stone wall behind it, and a heavy tread beat down the steps, then abruptly stopped. Robert didn't need to turn around. “Get out of here, Gisburne!” he yelled, loudly enough to dislodge the rafters.  
      “Stay,” came John's snapped counterorder.  
      The lunging walk resumed, growing nearer until Gisburne stood at de Rainault's side; rushes crushed beneath the knight's weight as he knelt beside his master.  
      “You can observe the price of _forgery_ , Gisburne. And ineptitude! _And treason!_ ”  
      “But...my lord King—“ Robert protested.  
      “ _Kill Robin Hood!_ ” John bellowed. “An uncomplicated command! Spike his head on the battlements; have _done_ with the wolfshead once and for all! And what do I receive?” If there was one royal habit worse than John's raving over his subjects’ heads, it was his way of circling his servants like prey, casting over them the stare of a starving beast. He did it now, shaking the parchment in de Rainault's ears to emphasize the words that followed. “A _message! Assuring_ me that he's dead!”  
      “My lord—“  
      “A letter is not a murder, _Sheriff!_ Even _now_ rumour tells that Robin Hood lives! Do you think me a fool? This _deception_ —“  
      “Sire, it's no d—”  
      “ _Silence!_ ” John roared. “You are an _oaf!_ A _butcher!_ ”  
      The resultant quiet was anything but peaceful, and lasted far too long for the Sheriff's liking. Then John spoke again, evidently musing aloud.  
      “Hood too was dark-haired, de Rainault.” His voice grew forebodingly soft. “With a few days' rot on you, one could hardly tell the difference. Shall I _arrange_ it?!”  
      Robert gulped and kept his eyes fixed on the floor. When John succumbed to these violent rages, there was nothing to be done save let him scream and hope to survive it—  
      “You say _nothing?!_ ”  
      Then again, perhaps a different tactic was in order. “My lord—“  
      “Produce some proof of his demise, de Rainault, or I shall place _you_ in the _vanguard_ —”  
      “But my lord King, there _is_ no _proof!_ ” cried Gisburne fecklessly.  
      A furious, lethal silence followed, during which Robert felt his stomach drop into his boots. To be sure, his association with Gisburne had been tempestuous at best. Many was the day the knight had made a conspicuous imbecile of himself and, by extension, his master. More than once Robert had silently lamented the bond of service that tied the idiot to him and thus provided a seemingly endless source of folly. But this was the first time that the Sheriff could recall regretting even those qualities of Gisburne’s which lay quite beyond his control, such as the man’s birth and subsequent existence.  
      “Th-that is...you see...” His deputy's wretched stammering was sure to improve nothing; the Sheriff could almost hear Guy thinking, or at least struggling to complete whatever activity _approximated_ thought in that addlepated mind. But just as Robert was about to command the murderous lout to cease his murderous burbling, Guy finally blurted out a full, if blundering, sentence. “It was the...the dogs, my lord!”  
      John halted his threatening stride. In a voice that dripped disbelief, he demanded, “Dogs?”  
      “The hounds!” Guy cried. “They...that is, when we...well, it happened, my lord, that—”  
      “Stop _babbling_ , you idiot!” John roared.  
      “—the pair of them – they'd given us trouble before, my liege – they broke leash, with all of the...e—excitement, you see, and...”  
      “...and left too little of the outlaw to display, my liege,” Robert finished, relieving Guy from John's skeptical stare. He glanced up briefly, saw that John's narrowed eyes remained suspicious. But the King's reply at least accepted the possibility—  
      “Why was I not told of this?!”  
      It seemed wise not to remind the King of his own demented furies, which allowed barely a word inserted edgewise; better, Robert decided, to acknowledge some wrongdoing, in the hope of pacifying John’s outrage. “It was a shameful failure, Sire.“  
      John then favoured Guy with the dubious honour of his attention. “Your arrival was _fortuitous_ , Gisburne. Why defend your... _liege_ , when you are next to succeed?”  
      “You chose FitzGilbert, my lord King,” Robert reminded him. It behooved him to prick Gisburne with that knowledge, to let the knight goad himself on John's disfavour; the rest he spoke with reluctance. “And Sir Guy intends to take the cross.”  
      John was silent for several moments, before uttering a scornful wheeze that Robert thought was intended as laughter. “Wouldn't want deception added to your ledger, eh, Gisburne?” He seemed enormously entertained. “How soon do you _flee_ Nottingham for the Holy Land?”  
      “My lord King—”  
      “ _Au oult de juen_ ,” interrupted Robert rudely, already tired of the topic and not wanting to hear some puerile praise of the affair's tremendous nobility and sanctity. If he was to perish by John's unjustifiable whim, then he'd at least spare himself a sermon in advance.  
      “Indeed!” John exclaimed. Something in the idea of Gisburne as Crusader had caught John’s amused attention, but the reprieve was only too brief; the monarch’s dangerous anger returned, simmering just beneath the surface as John again addressed his sheriff. “Your foresters will attest to this ‘shameful failure,’ de Rainault?”  
      Robert lifted his head, facing the King with what he hoped to be a ruthless and formidable stare. “Those that _survived_ ,” he responded.  
      “And the hooded man?” John demanded.  
      “An impostor, my lord King,” Gisburne said. “He'll soon be _dealt_ with!”  
      “Spoken like a true _Crusader_ ,” John mocked. “You may return to your preparations, Gisburne. Leave the outlaws to less _faithful_ men.”  
      No man – even a very great fool – needed seven months to bundle his possessions, but Gisburne evidently understood a dismissal when he heard one, however patronizingly phrased. The knight scrambled to his feet; simultaneously, John crushed the message he held and dropped it before Robert's knees.  
      “I will eat in one hour, de Rainault. After I dine, I will speak to your foresters, and I expect their stories and the outlaws' _silence_ to confirm your account. _You_ will make it known that Robin Hood's body was destroyed utterly. Dismembered, perhaps. To discourage any pretenders who might claim his notoriety. And if a single sighting of Robin Hood is confirmed in the next month, I will hang you myself. Yes?”  
      “Yes, Sire,” Robert replied. He stood and bowed before retreating, preceded by his deputy and striving to keep the fear from his stride. Only when the door shut behind them both did he finally succumb, bracing his back upon solid stone and shutting his eyes.  
      “My lord?” Guy asked, coming to a halt.  
      Robert didn’t know whether he intended to scold or praise the knight, as he began. “Gisburne—“  
      Guy waited, but Robert could not continue, for the tumult of his thoughts was too great. Finally, he lifted his head and resumed walking, then turned himself and his deputy down an empty corridor; when he was certain they stood alone, he again stopped and spoke, his voice softened by necessary secrecy. “Have the foresters gone?”  
      “A few, my lord.”  
      “Call them back!” he ordered. “Have them report to you at once, and make sure they _agree_ , for Christ's sake. I don't need to tell you what’ll happen otherwise.”  
      “No, my lord,” Guy said softly, his pale eyes wide and golden in torchlight.  
      Robert looked Guy over, masking confusion as he absorbed what the knight had done; pleasure fought with suspicion as he briefly considered what possible motivation Guy could’ve had – and what impossible demand might follow. His instinct was to settle the matter at once, and so he yanked from his small finger its ring of moonstone in silver, then grasped Guy's wrist. When the hand fell slack, Robert placed the ornament into Guy's palm and molded the rough fingers around it. Resisting the lightning-strike sensation of that touch, he pulled away and motioned a dismissal, but the knight ignored the instruction and opened his fist instead, gazing at his reward for several moments before eyeing de Rainault warily. His pained confusion seemed somehow offended, and for a moment, the surprised Sheriff half-expected the ring hurled into his face. At last Gisburne tucked the jewel into his purse, then looked again at the Sheriff, his fine features beseeching some response.  
      “My lord...what _happened?_ ” he whispered.  
      Robert shook his head. “Go,” he commanded.  
      Gisburne had no choice but to depart, and every stomp of his retreat reproached the Sheriff for his thwarted curiosity. Robert watched him disappear down the corridor, then hurried to the kitchens, where he yelled furious commands for preparation of the finest viands and threatened to plate the servants’ _heads_ if any mistakes appeared on the King’s table. If John’s visits became any more frequent, thought the Sheriff gloomily, he’d have to _invent_ new methods of torture and murder by which to motivate his heel-dragging cooks.  
      Finally he was able to retreat to his chambers, there to await word of his will enforced. After the door closed behind him, he stripped away chaperon and cape, then swiped a cup from the still-ruined desk and poured out whatever liquor had been left him, hardly caring what it was so long as it quelled the painful pulsing in his head. He'd gotten quite unceremoniously drunk the previous night and now returned to flooding throat and thought with honeyed torpor; it was for consummate intoxication that he aimed, and perhaps some state even beyond that, until the burning sunset behind Capstone Hill might be extinguished and then washed from his memory altogether.

***

      _They have laid down their weapons to honour their God; believing themselves thus cleansed of bloodshed, they join hands and dance deosil with their torches, wheeling about in imitation of the sun's fire – not that those simpletons would grasp any promethean allusions in their custom, of course. He watches as the dancers halt, skip widdershins in syncopated steps and then return to the rhythm anew; it is life, death, life again: their vaunted three-in-one, depicted in the interwoven spirals that adorn weld- and woad-painted cheeks. This is their Blessing, a witless surrender to the merciless Hunter, who Himself shall provide the slain stag – or so they believe – as sacred feast, to replenish the dancers who give their strength to His rite. The ring they dance shall never break, and though they die they shall awake; a simple creed on simple lips affirmed: Blessed be._  
      _Blessed be, he echoes, returning their greetings in a reluctant murmur. He understands their rite better than any, even concedes that there's a small-minded gaiety to it. But there's no wisdom to be found in twining the trees roundabout like a drunken donkey, and no camaraderie possible for him amongst these degraded fools, who revel in spite of their failing revolt. It hardly surprises him that he arouses no suspicion, as he sits irritated and alone before the bonfire; they have trusted his tale completely and so believe him too deeply hurt for revelry, this man they call Edgar of Eyam: a scribe who lost his livelihood to the siege of Peveril Castle, then witnessed the horrors that followed in Castleton, before fleeing Darbyshire in a frenzy of half-mad grief. They have heard from him how the leaders swung by their necks from Herne's sacred oak – “six flowers broken from Castleton’s Tree,” as the song surreptitiously laments – and they have asked him no further detail._  
      _No-one has guessed that he gave the order, that he watched those Saxon rebels blanch at their sentence and then darken in its execution. They’d been young, little older than he, and fair as flowers indeed; the chaos of Castleton had served him a distressing lesson in excess, and his brooding before the fire is not entirely feigned. He had never seen a man hanged, to say nothing of having commanded it done; months after, he still cannot speak aloud the name of Peveril. But he has been chosen, by the same Hunter who allowed his people to conquer His; Robert has been enjoined to strength, and only in strength can he uproot those lawless fools who'd deprive their kinsmen of progress, of Norman justice, of truth itself, and keep them pounding the dirt like animals, reverencing ignorance and outworn dust. With such words he charges himself, watching the knots of chattering revellers who await their turn in the rounds, until a high voice disturbs his high-minded thoughts._  
      _“Blessed be, Edgar.”_  
      _‘Edgar’ looks up at the young woman, whose unbound hair falls to her hips and frames a comely shape; such beauty might attract him, were it not marred by her repulsive Saxon lineage. He mutters the expected reply, omitting her name, for in truth he can’t remember it – Fira, Frea, something of that sort. From the corner of his eye, he monitors the girl warily as she settles onto a nearby seat. Several minutes pass in uncomfortable silence, and when she neither speaks nor departs, he swallows exasperation and turns to her._  
      _“Did you wish something?”_  
      _She hesitates before answering. “Only to rest a moment.”_  
      _“So you have.”_  
      _A civilised woman would have grasped his meaning and let him be, but she simpers, as though his honesty is a ploy to please her. When she speaks again, her voice is playful. “Before the offering…there's more dancing to be had.”_  
      _“Then you’d best return quickly.”_  
      _“Will you come?”_  
      _For a moment, he tries to imagine himself taking this girl’s hand, prancing about with her in some heathen carola, enacting a crooked parody of celebration; the notion is absurd enough to tighten his lips into a smirk. But she smiles at him like a blind fool, communicating an innocence that no rebel could truly possess. Angrily he takes his eyes from her and stares at a space between his feet, shaking his head._  
      _The girl rises; dully he hopes that she will leave him in peace and go ply her charms to a more willing victim. But she again startles him, this folly-filled creature, stepping closer and bending down. “Will you not?” She touches his wrist then, lightly tugging on the hand that supports his chin. “It could—oh! ”_  
      _By unthinking instinct he reacts, jerking his arm to push her away; the force of it knocks her off-balance and nearly topples her to the earth. Taken aback, he gawks at the girl, almost begins an apology before realising the hypocrisy of regret. The joy in her face has vanished; he looks away from her flush of embarrassment, casting his eyes about for some distraction. But he sees nothing worth his attention, and his mood sinks still further as he notices two men heading in their direction, laughing at some merry converse as they approach his fire._  
      _Before he can offer some hasty excuse and absent himself from further unpleasant interaction, the pair arrives, booming with hearty and slightly drunken salutations. Robert looks upon them with dread, knowing too well the dull, rambling conversation that inevitably follows any gathering of more than one Saxon. But the younger of the two fixes his attention upon the lady; she, in turn, seems to cast off rejection as lightly as a mantle, preening beneath this new admirer’s gaze. It is little time before he holds out an arm and offers to escort her back to the merrymaking. She accepts, and her retreating laughter suggests that the unpleasant outsider will soon be forgotten; of course, Robert expects nothing more from fickle Saxon affections._  
      _He turns his attention to the other man then, the village thane, hoping that this straggler will follow the young pair’s lead and return to the noisy festivities. To his annoyance, the man remains, but only stretches callused hands over the fire and murmurs, “Blessed be, Edgar,” before settling into a pensive rest. This time, the greeting does not stab Robert with unwelcome reminisces; now something he cannot name twists and presses at him, makes him want to run deeper into the forest until he never again sees another Saxon. But he can only mask the anxious anticipation that chews his insides, lest his unwanted companion take note of his unease._  
      _Ten weeks he has lived among these animals, occupying their dung-encrusted village and hating it all the while, weighed heavily by the duplicity and danger of every moment: 'Edgar' has participated readily and with evident gratitude in village life, while Robert has taken careful note of every unwise utterance. He has lodged in their homes, endured their meals, and repaid their meagre hospitality by writing their correspondence, copying for himself any potentially damning content. And he has puzzled over why people with so little would risk all they have left, life and limb, to a meaningless cause, while scolding himself each time he feels a moment’s sympathy at some seditious remark._  
      _It is too calm here, too little activity and too much time to think; it feeds his nettling suspicions that these conspirators are crafting some intricate plot. He has not yet discovered its details, and he no longer has the luxury of patience; some days earlier, news had reached him of critical setbacks to the rebellion. It was time to act, before the townsfolk discovered the imminent destruction of their crusade and decided to mobilize, and he’d verged on giving the order – until a few villagers spoke of the Blessing, quietly suggesting that he might seek healing at the Midsummer feast, when Herne should come among them. Whether their assurances are wistful or truthful, he has delayed his attack nearly a fortnight to discover._  
      _In the meantime, no-one – even this thane, charged with defense of the village – has discerned Robert's true purpose, seeing in his dour moods and angry outbursts only the grief of a troubled man. Robert thus ruminates undisturbed, wondering for the hundredth time if the miniscule chance of Herne’s presence is worth the tedious torment of this festival. He is at least mercifully unburdened with conversation, by any sounds save those of leaf-shaking breezes, brushing the music of flute and drum past his ears. Left little choice but to linger, Robert tries to relax; he has nearly succeeded, when the thane’s little son runs up to the resting men and, in a burst of noisome energy, flings himself against his father's chest. The thane’s breathless exclamation moves the embracing pair to laughter; their mirth even pulls a grudging smile from the morose mourner of Castleton. Then the child halts and covers his mouth shyly, staring at the man whom these many weeks has not yet made familiar._  
      _“Will you not greet Edgar?” asks his father expectantly._  
      _The boy wrings his hands for several moments, then hides his cheek against his father’s tunic. “Robin!” he blurts out._  
      _The reply is a teasing reproach. “That is you! You must call other people by their names, not yours.”_  
      _The boy tilts his head and again gawks at the man, evidently confused. At last his face brightens, and he strolls around the fire, then stops before ‘Edgar.’ Tree-dark eyes blink in sober examination, and a sudden smile crinkles them nearly shut as he leans close._  
      _“ROBIN!” the boy hollers defiantly. His shout is blaring, and its unwitting victim toggles a pained ear as the child runs away, giggling at his own mischief._  
      _“By the Hunter,” sighs Ailric. “I apologise for him, the imp! He isn't usually like this_ —“  
      _“He is...certain of himself.”_  
      _The thane laughs, and Robert keeps his eyes trained on the fire, as the peasants all around him spin and shriek with mindless joy. He cannot mistake their attentions for worthiness or righteousness, cannot allow his mettle to be corroded by kindly speech, though his nearly-nineteen years suddenly weigh upon him like ninety. Soon enough, the second night of the three-day Blessing will fall, and whether or not the God manifests to these ignorants’ invocations, it will ultimately change nothing: the fools have doffed weapons for their untimely devotions, and in the early morning hours, while they sleep off the exhaustion of their woodland revels, his soldiers will slaughter these Loxley rebels and put an end to their fanatical, destructive resistance — which, Robert knows all too well, has shed more Norman blood than any stupid forest-feast can absolve._  
      _His will be done. Conquest and Justice upheld. Blessed be._  
      _Ailric’s voice interrupts his thoughts. “I'd best keep him from his devilment! We’ll gather soon. When the music stops.” He rises and selects a log from a cord of gathered wood, then plunks it onto the fire, sending up a sizzling spray of radiant heat. Robert’s dark eyes follow the man’s footsteps, quietly willing no further disturbances to his lone counsel; when he is again satisfied by solitude, his eyes flicker down to the flames, which build higher and stronger as they devour the fresh fodder. Sparkling plumes spit from the burning woodpile; not wishing his own flesh to feed a Midsummer bonfire, he backs away hastily, but a spark of recognition shifts his attention and draws him again close – there seems a shape there that he can almost discern, forming from the shifting tendrils of light._  
      _Wisps of red-gold flame waver before him. They dance and intertwine, unwinding to again embrace, then parting again to unveil an image, a hazy shape that becomes sharp and shining as he stares. Robert can no longer hear the lilting strains of flute; sudden sensation sweeps through him, a rush of fire into his senses. Right before his eyes, he sees Ailric’s hand again placing fuel upon the fire, then reaching into the flames to lift something resting there. He gasps at the thane’s danger but dares not budge, and the beauty of a relic is at last revealed to him: a smooth, ornately inscribed quarrel that lies in a pool of its own light. Tongues of golden fire caress the knotwork that adorns this sacred object. The Arrow is exquisite; it is powerful. He studies it with reverence, tracing the patterns of its wards with careful fingertips; its glow like moonlight quiets his heart._  
      _The forest vanishes as though felled in an instant, and around him instead stands the great Wheel which turns upon this Arrow. He knows this place, a cradle of his people. He is protected by these ancient sentinels who keep their silent ceaseless watch. The stones are paired and joined, the Holy Three repeating without ending or beginning._  
      _As he falls to his knees, he hears a voice, and it issues to him a challenge:_  
      Which of the Three is greatest?  
      _He clutches the Arrow to his breast and considers the stones: Man and Woman rooted in earth, their strength upholding the Child. They are Three, they are One; carefully he considers each in turn. Finally he turns his gaze from the stones and calls the God within him to speak, until the joy of knowledge floods his surrender. He understands then why the Hooded Man must come, must bring deliverance and justice, so that no man shall stand upon another, but each make of himself a God._  
      _Yet the Arrow is not his to wield. It awaits the Hooded Man; it shall bind him to his fate and use him until his end. Until the prophecy is fulfilled, its instrument must be protected._  
      _Will he vow to guard the Arrow, even with his heart’s blood?_  
      _His answer bursts forth in adoration and wonder, bright as the Midsummer sun._  
      _He will._ Yes, I will…  
      _Then the light fades. and the portal of woven flames unwinds and vanishes, shoving Robert from the stone circle and again into himself. His arms clutch each other in boneless terror; he is freezing and affrighted, shivering and sweating in the summer heat. The music is loud and suddenly obscene, splitting his ears with a discordance that blossoms within him to rage. He stares with newly-opened eyes at the celebrating fools, absorbing with fresh disgust their savage music and childish capering; how he despises these imbeciles, rotting amidst their misguided mysticism! He recognises the circle, that amateurish stone edifice they call Rhiannon’s Wheel; he has seen it before with his own eyes! That the Arrow might be there, even now, while he has wasted daylight in some frivolous gambol, as though he could learn anything from the prancing of subjugated sheep!_  
      _In a furious moment, he considers seizing Ailric, pushing the man at knifepoint to the Wheel and forcing him to point out the artifact’s location. But think, he must think! he dare not provoke these people, for there are many bloodless means of slaughter, and he has endured too much for too long to capitulate here. He is the God’s own; has the potency of that choice not just been proven by prophecy? Later he will explore this gift, learn to control and harness its power; for now, he will confirm the truth of his perceptions and find the implement himself, and to hell with these primitives and their superstitious rites!_  
      _With the speed of an arrow loosed from the string, he stands, and says farewell to no-one; he will not perjure himself to wish them a peaceful parting. At first he walks with lowered head and evident purpose, then breaks into a stealthy run when he can no longer be seen. The route he takes is not the path leading to Loxley village, but a different road that trails off into dirt and uncut tall grass, ending in a bridge that spans the river Loxley. Beneath this sturdy structure, his men await him; they are surprised by his early arrival, but are nonetheless prepared, their plan quickly confirmed. He alters their stratagem in only one particular, requesting six volunteers to accompany him to a site just outside the village, where his “information” holds that a stolen Church relic has been hidden. Then he rests against an obliging pylon, relieved to feel good Roman stone at his back, and drowses fitfully, waiting the coming of dawn's light._  
      _As he sleeps, he sees again the revellers in the forest, who open their circles to congregate in a sacred grove. Quietly he observes as they sit around him, the women in their crowns of flowers, the children eager with their offerings of ale and bread. His arm encircles the lissome waist of a young woman; she leans on his shoulder, weary from dancing. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, a shining fog reveals a man-who-is-not, crowned by antlers and clad in power. For a brief moment, he verges on grasping the mystery, as the Stag opens His arms and, with the gesture, takes them all in to Himself. Then the God meets his gaze, and thought flies from him at the sight of that ancient face, immobile like stone. He breathes, parts summer-parched lips to speak, but no words emerge. And Herne remains silent, acknowledging nothing._

***

      Ultimately, the three-in-one had proved its own confirmation of his righteousness: Repton, Castleton, and Loxley ended the first Saxon rebellion; Wickham, Sherwood, and Capstone quelled the mere notion of another. Three days before, three outlaws had mounted a desperate last stand atop that last, then left only one to face the Sheriff’s vengeance alone. And bright in his memory that moment shone, too bright, burning into the eyes of his mind: sunset's red-gold fire encircling the hill, an aureole of flame to frame the tall figure who stood unflinching before his doom…  
      The Sheriff drinks again, clutching his cup like a shield. The man who died was nothing more than an odious barbarian, and not the messiah that the serfs hope to hoist upon their dying dreams. That man arching his bow skyward, aiming his final arrow, a-fire in the sinking sun — that Hooded Maniac had benefited from a fortunate coincidence, a dramatic setting to silhouette his pathetic final moments, to glorify a death that could never be glorious.  
      Cunning has spared de Rainault a similar demise, and it's to his own brilliantly-crafted guile that he raises his goblet now. Oh, the outlaws had shown a certain plodding competence; he can well afford to concede that pittance now, allows them the grace of his thoughts with a magnanimous smile. They'd fought hard to escape, even wearied him enough to fall prey to the little subterfuge they'd played him. But the details had settled into place soon enough, after Gisburne revealed what he'd told them:  
      _Your precious leader is dead!_  
      Those words had moved the outlaws to desperation, spurring one of the captives to wriggle free of his bonds — tied ineptly, Robert was certain, by shrinking and possibly _shirking_ soldiers — then release the others before himself taking up hood and bow, to ensure the prisoners’ escape and frighten the guardsmen out of their wits. Whoever he'd been, he’d succeeded in both aims; even Gisburne—  
      ( _“You said he was dead! He’s **dead**!”_ )  
      Oh, how stupid their shared terror, in those maddening moments! He laughs to himself now, that he actually thought...had feared...when really, he should have composed himself and soothed his suspicions with inviolable victory. For the Hunter had at last surrendered, had even bestowed some small blessing – however inadequate – upon the worthiest of His faithful! Still later the Sheriff had realised how the Saxon lore's prediction of defeat had, in truth, signalled his own triumph; how could he have failed, with his ascendance so clearly pronounced?  
      _Brother shall slay brother_ —  
      The Loxley folk had called Castleton’s refugee “brother”; they’d soon learned the folly of such faith in kindred-kind.  
      _—the Hunter shall become the hunted—_  
      Again Robert drinks, and his ferocious smile bares gleaming teeth; he savours both his refreshment and his revenge.  
      _—Robin shall slay Robin._  
      Secretly, he'd feared which “Robin” was to fall. But he needn't have worried about that outcome, already ordained, especially after the outlaws' leader rendered _himself_ defenseless before the Sheriff's men! De Rainault sighs with deep contentment and closes his eyes—  
      —the fire again burns in his memory, again the skyline wavering in the sun’s dying light; again he lives in that moment when the outlaw _nodded_ to him with a smile that the Sheriff should never have discerned, with that maddeningly gentle voice that somehow _spoke_ to him – at a hundred paces’ distance!  
      _Your time begins, Sheriff. But it won’t last…_  
      ...it had sounded in his mind, clear and relentless and _inexplicable_.  
      _Herne the Hunter, Father, accept this my sacrifice_ —  
      He'd slapped his own forehead with sudden fury; the blow had silenced nothing.  
      — _to restore this country and rekindle its spirit in the hearts of the oppressed_ —  
      Robert doesn’t know how he heard such things. He doesn’t want to know. Nor does he care to contemplate how the rebel could have snapped a yew stave over his thigh, as easily as he'd ripped apart parchments the month before. Neither the outlaw's impossible strength nor his incendiary polemics matter any longer; the only worthy message of that illiterate imbecile's life had been the defeat written in his own blood!  
      — _may my blood, willingly shed, heal this land. As You will!_  
      He rebukes himself sternly to silence such thoughts; his shrieked order to _shoot_ had seen the deed done, however shameful the panic in his shrill shout. All that preceded that moment, and all that followed, had proven only the stupidity of building upon impotent shadows. Even the apparent successor, the “Hooded Man,” was only an imposter: Scathlock, judging by the build, or the Saracen, perhaps even one of the villagers—  
      — _it’s not over. It’ll **never** be over._  
      He sniggers at his own dramatic pronouncement; he'd never have been so stupid as to create an undying legend for the people to reverence, or a martyr for them to mourn. The outlaw is simply, gracelessly dead. _Dead._ And soon he’ll be forgotten, as the dead inevitably are, no matter what pretty prattle the people speak to soothe ears wounded by the news...

***

      _Nothing's forgotten_ , Loxley's thane had proclaimed, days before his village was torched into nonexistence; Robert wondered if Ailric would still espouse such nonsense, now that his own face had joined the legions of others whose details Robert could no longer recall. Those words had struck the Sheriff as more a curse than a rallying cry, their malefic intent confirmed each time Robert bolted awake to the crackling of burning thatch or the tugging squeaks of burdened rope. It had taken him years to discern the utility of that phrase, to understand the power to be had by _forgetting nothing_ , wringing his cursed memories dry of every possible advantage. It was thus fortified that he'd stood in the valley beneath Capstone Hill, recalling every wrong done him by the son of that traitorous thane — beginning many years ago, with one troublesome outburst that might have thwarted the entire Loxley campaign, had Ailric perceived his son unmasking “Edgar” with that sudden shout. It was past time that that puerile Saxon child paid the penalty of his deeds, and so the Sheriff had driven the three remaining outlaws before him like the animals they were, his blood pumping with the will, the _need_ to destroy them.  
      He called halt to his men and surveyed the terrain with well-practiced judgment; the outlaws’ pitiful position gave him the first hope he’d had in hours. To his eyes, the Saxons’ commandment of remembrance only confirmed the grave error of their own cause, for the entire English countryside tells of Senlac with silent eloquence, heralding the deserved victory of Norman over Saxon: his people’s great castles stand in towering rebuke of the native fortifications, which had required no greater skill than to heap earth atop a hill and shape it into rudimentary walls. This former “fortress” of Capstone Hill had perhaps sufficed for the savages who guarded its ramparts with slings and spears, but it had long ago collapsed into rubble, and gave no protection to the rebels who stood defiantly upon its summit.  
      Like foxes they’d slipped through his grasp through the day-long, and like foxes they sought refuge in familiar ground, and if they’d hoped for a fortress from which to mount a final defense, they found only a decaying den, the apt remains of their race. It was all too fitting that they sheltered amidst Saxon ruins; the first Saxon rebellion had cost Robert de Rainault dearly, and there would be no second, nor any other, ever again. He intended to make of those three an example that would _never_ be forgotten, and though his uneasy mind kept pondering its tasks, stirring up unwelcome memories, he attributed it to nervousness and not negligence.  
      The men flanking him also shifted and jittered, but then, they had equal cause for concern; they were the doomed conscripts already implicated in Laxintone, dredged up from Nottingham’s oubliette with an unprecedented offer: a full pardon in exchange for obedience to his plan. Save for one batty old man – who would’ve been useless in battle anyhow – the dungeon’s occupants had jumped at their chance, and it had pleased de Rainault to pit traitor against traitor, to control an army of men who were as disposable as their opponents. It had taken eleven of their deaths to sate the Hunter's bloodlust, and so the survivors were openly, understandably elated when the outlaws' leader fell. Their raucous screams broke the valley's tense silence; spoils-hunger pitched their voices wild as they cried out. They surged forward, with a boldness they certainly hadn't shown while the wolfshead still wielded his bow. They charged toward Capstone Hill in a fit of incipient violence, and only then did the dazed de Rainault realise what they likely intended. But Robin Hood was _his!_ Swiftly he spurred his mare into the vanguard; the condemned fools, he knew, had no choice but to obey him.  
      “Into the forest!” he shouted. “There are two left; get after them!” To the foresters he issued more detailed instructions: keep hunting the imbecile and the widow; guide the men back to camp only when the light began to fade. A few eyed the sky skeptically — recognising as well as he did that perhaps an hour at most remained to them — but they none dared defy him, only ran the hounds forward with that half-barking, half-speaking gibberish they employed, the disappointed soldiers following behind like chastened dogs.  
      Then the Sheriff rode on ahead, pushing his mount up the rubble-heap that had held such mortal peril only moments before; there he encountered the men who'd brought down Robin Hood – now staring at the body in a united frisson of incredulity – and ignored the corpse as he called the six to him. To five he gave instructions to return to Wickham immediately, there to be stripped of arms and maille and have their names recorded before their release: lest they request some outlandish recognition of their achievement, he determined their reward for them, declaring they'd be given not only the pardon he'd offered, but freedom from conscription henceforth. Trusting that promise to drive them back to camp unescorted, Robert then handed Andrew a message penned several days before, instructing the jubilant knight to race the missive to Newark. The pride of being first to bear such news spurred the lad back to his horse and down to the Newark road, the dead wolfshead abandoned in a frenzy of eager ambition.  
      Thus was Robert left alone with Robin, and unholy mirth rose within him at the thought of father and son reunited by their slayer — again the three-in-one, serving as a welcome signpost of his victory. With the air of a priest conducting a sacrificial rite, he bent down to the corpse and, knowing twilight to be fast approaching, he searched the dead man with an interrogator's efficiency, anxious to find what the wolfshead surely carried. But his ungentle handling, twice repeated, turned up nothing; his scouting of the hilltop revealed only an empty quiver, lying across from arrow-riddled soldiers.  
      And then his livid, loud shouting fell on the ears of the useless dead, his temper bursting into sounds that put his guardsmen's prior screams to shame. He kicked the wolfshead, demanded to know the secrets hoarded by the Hunter's whelp, this savage so ill-chosen by a capricious demon! _Tell me!_ he ordered, again and again, rebuking the son for having even less sense than his wastrel father, threatening the remaining outlaws and then every resident in the shire with unspeakable tortures if the corpse dared lay silent. For surely a body so infested with sorcery could simply thrust the answer into de Rainault's thoughts, and so render unto the Sheriff of Nottingham the property stolen more than a decade ago — the artifact that was rightfully _his!_ And when the month's miseries, the day's fears, and his anger's fire finally burnt away his distaste for such things, Robert again knelt beside the supine outlaw and drew his knife, his smile an unseen taunt to the deceased. Calling “Herne's Son” with mocking scorn, he pulled the dagger's edge along the thin cheek, marring those features with a well-deserved mark of violence. Again he lifted the knife, determined to pull truth from that still and silent form; a sudden motion over his hand startled him into recoil. He held up his arm but could hardly see it, for a thick, dusky mist which obscured the man lying before him and even blurred the outline of his own limbs.  
      He stared up, as a flowing fog carried away his rage and left only wary fear behind, as it transformed his one-sided inquiry into an unwanted and agonizing confrontation.  
      As Herne stepped forward, the Silver Arrow proffered in His outstretched hand.

***

      _He thrusts his dagger before himself, his glare a warning, the weapon's point warding away the “God.” Still he rests upon his knees, he realises; to his tormenter he cannot give this tribute. Quickly he rises. The deity follows his motion with raptor-keen eyes, unconcerned._  
      _Herne,_ Herne _, so long unseen!_  
      _The deep eyes compel, the same ageless stare he has met in dreams past counting! He might ask a thousand questions, but he can remember none of them. And he can say nothing as the God speaks to him, in the same unvoiced way as His slain Son._  
      Seize the Arrow, if you would become all that it demands.  
      _His tongue is unfrozen by the absurdity of the challenge._ A quarrel needs nothing save a crossbow, _he answers acidly._  
      Yet you have sought the temper of a weapon.  
      How do you **know** that?! _he screams. But his boldness is overcome as violent feeling blossoms within him, something clutching and claiming and charged, stronger even than adamant; for a moment, water stings his eyes._  
      I **know** you, _answers the God. Again He holds out the Arrow._  
      _Shimmer and shadow dance over its carved surface, and whatever the crimes of the dread creature before him, this magic is his by right; it is the Sun that shall make him the Moon, he suddenly recalls._  
      _And what else could those celestial forms signify, but the realm of Herne Himself? The Hunter and the Arrow, light and darkness…_  
      _...life and death?_  
      _If his dawning guess is correct, then the object being offered him houses unimaginable power – power that the wolfshead had perhaps lacked sufficient mettle to wield._  
      _Is the Hunter finally admitting His error?_  
      _He reconsiders the notion as he glances at the pitiful corpse near his feet. Had Herne's Son even known that he mounted his own sacrificial altar? Had he bared his breast to the Hunter's arrows willingly — or had he prayed as the lamb bleats, to tug at the heart of the knife-bearing priest?_  
      _God's blood, he cannot trust a creature that would slay His own chosen child!_  
      _Robert thus closes his eyes, shutting out the glamour of the Hunter's golden gaze._ Show me its power, Stag. I would **know** what I claim.  
      _He feels the being's assent, the echo of His answer._ Come.  
      _Warily, slowly, he parts his eyelids and sheaths his knife, then takes a step forward. It is the closest he has ever stood to the Hunter; deeply he breathes, and gulps back speech before dim memories can part his lips, words of half-forgotten prayer in the Saxons' tongue...It is the Arrow, the Arrow alone that merits his attention, and at the creature's nod, he reaches out to it._  
      _Its potency pulses through his fingertips as he rests a hand atop the smooth shape, nearly weeping at the thing's touch. His. It is his,_ his _, as it ought to have been always_ —  
      Are you certain?  
      _Pride courses through him as he recalls his bold demand; for a moment he lauds his own bravery, at demanding proof of the Stag before whom all others blindly tremble!_  
      Obey me!  
      _He reaches the height of his power in this moment, when the Hunter bows His proud head to his command and proclaims acceptance, however strangely phrased:_  
      The Oak is felled; by Holly is his fate fulfilled! **So must it be!**  
      _And the world begins to whirl around him._  
      _A spinning stupour seizes the Sheriff, and he cannot stand; his lurching surroundings hurl him to a painful genuflection. Gripping the rocky ground for purchase, he gazes up, away from the disorienting skyline, and to his great shock, witnesses the sky darkening with a heavy pall: clouds are forming, faster than he could have ever imagined, and when their heavy haze holds a nigh-apocalyptic weight, they break forth in rain. Rain, that has eluded this cursed earth for weeks, falls in sheets; the sky weeps as he kneels, a-gape, unable to intervene or even to rise._  
      _The thirsting earth drinks deeply; in his very sinews, he feels the shuddering gasp of withered growth, the voracious suck of life too long denied. And he watches in wonder as the sick and sleeping countryside revives, plumping and filling, budding and bursting in an exuberant rush. Empty trees in the distance bloom in a torrent of green. Even the rocks beneath his clutching hands become islands ringed by seas of grass._  
      _He lives a small eternity until the rains slow, then cease. When the maelstrom has dissolved into silence, he holds out a hand to his own inspection and gapes: it is dry, despite his witness of what was surely the greatest storm since the fabled Flood. He looks around, breathes the fresh, sweet air tinged with petrichor; for a moment he marvels at the earth transformed—_  
      _—until a jolt of sharp disappointment dissipates his daze, heading off his pleasure with the force of a quarrel. He'd asked for a demonstration of the Arrow's true power; he'd received nothing more than a pouring rainstorm and its resultant vegetation._  
      _His eyes narrow as he recalls how his ignorant peasants plant and harvest their fields: by the Sun and Moon. He'd once been told that the Silver Arrow could manifest desires — and what more could those Saxon simpletons wish, than fair days and abundant crops?_  
      _God._ God! _He might have known the Arrow to be another facile trick! A simple weather fetish — made attractive by appealing artistry, and shaped as a weapon to disguise its impotence!_  
      _Swiftly he quells his own heart-sinking unhappiness, the bitter bile for which the Hunter alone must be blamed. For the Sheriff of Nottingham has honed his inner steel for decades, and he is no weakling, to quaver before the spectre of his own dashed dreams. He rises from the rocks and again approaches the Hunter; this time he does not hesitate. Once more he touches the Arrow, then takes it from the demon...and hurls it away with all of his strength._  
      Find another man to die for wheat and weather, Stag. I am not so great a fool as you would have me!  
      _The Stag meets his stare._ So be it. Summer falls, and Winter reigns. Yet beware, Holly King, for no season endures...  
      _Then Herne bends to His Son, and something dark and dire appears in the deepening shadows of His face as He opens His arms, lifts and bears to His chest His fallen child. In awed horror the Sheriff watches as the Hunter stands, and the vines of His garb wrap the corpse around; the crossbows' violation vanishes in that verdant embrace: the penetrating quarrels, the ugly wounds, the torn and stained garments, even the gash gaping the quiet features — all gone, leaving Robin i'the Hood unmarked by the Sheriff's malice._  
      _Then the fog retreats, and when the final wave of mist blows past, its whispers washing his ears with secrets he cannot discern, the Hunter and His Son are no more seen._  
      _For several moments the Sheriff stands motionless. He looks around him, suddenly desolate amidst this new-made world. He has no notion of how to proceed hence. But he will have strength, he reminds himself; it is a fitting injunction despite its source. He is still the High Sheriff of Nottingham. He has lost neither his wealth nor his command; he has not laid down his laurels. The outlaw is still dispatched, his position still secure. He has relinquished nothing more than a vague, distant hope, based upon dusty conjecture._  
      _Still, his heart is hollow as he returns to his docile mare, resumes her rein and begins pacing her down the hill. He walks alongside his mount, and ponders, and as they track towards Wickham, Robert resolves that he will speak nothing of these events, will not confirm the mythos of Herne's Son by multiplying mystical rumour. He will proceed as though the tempest had never come, had not torn through aspirations not yet discarded — as though the woods and fields of his shire had never suffered drought — as though—_  
      _His thoughts are disturbed as his boot catches something hard, an obstacle over which he nearly trips; it stops his lagging tread, and his glance discerns a longbow arrow at his feet, half-embedded in the earth. Robert realises what this must be, and without thinking, he reaches down to retrieve the macabre memento and binds it to the side of his mare's saddle. Then he mounts and spreads his cape over the conspicuous object, before continuing his return journey in subdued solitude_ —

***

      —he cannot bear to ruminate any longer upon such depressing events. Irritated, the Sheriff throws aside his cup and departs for his office, snapping his fingers and motioning the first servant he passes to follow; if his mind will not cease, then he might as well reap some useful result from this excess of thought. His agitation moves them quickly to his destination, from whence he sends the maid scurrying with orders for wine and fruit. Then he throws open the door; within the chamber, a seated dark-haired figure startles, before turning in his chair and standing up, his absurdly pompous robes swishing a purple swath around him.  
      “Good God,” Hugo mutters. “I didn't expect you the very moment I arrived, Robert.”  
      Robert pinches his forehead wearily and gives his head a short shake. It hardly seems worthwhile to explain the meaning of _coincidence_ to his stupid brother; instead, he shuts the door behind him and walks toward the desk. “Don't go bringing God into this, Hugo. Unless He can remove the King from my hall.”  
      “I noticed,” Hugo answers grimly. “Why is—“  
      “Further inquiry into the affair of Robin Hood,” the Sheriff retorts. He claims his seat at the large oaken table and digs out a hole in the parchments piled there, then leans back and props his feet into the crevasse.  
      “Ah, yes. Well, I'll congratulate you for finally eliminating that bother — though not officially, of course, the Church can hardly sanction murder—“  
      “Of course not. Only when it's committed _en masse_ , in a foreign land.” Robert examines a sealed document impatiently, then throws it aside. “I've work to do, as you might notice—“  
      “As always,” says the cleric.  
      Their less-than-amiable bickering is interrupted by the door opening and the serving-girl entering, bearing a platter that engulfs her; having evidently been informed of the Abbot's arrival, she sets down two wine cups, then a pitcher and a large bowl of apples. Robert glowers at her — that she couldn't possibly have known his exact whim is quite beside the point — then shoos the creature away. He pours for himself, takes a long drink, and pours another before reluctantly relinquishing the vessel to his brother; he is in a foul enough mood without feigning unfelt hospitality. His restless hands seek occupation; finally he picks up an unappetizing apple and twists the stem, pretending for a moment that he holds a truss of grapes instead of a mealy, bruised mass. “What do you want, Hugo?”  
      The Abbot answers with a critical sneer before speaking. “Already forgotten, have you?”  
      “What are you blathering about?” the Sheriff snaps.  
      Hugo glares. “Saint Neot's, Robert. Pilgrimage. The new church. Have I jostled your memory?” He sighs, shaking his head at his brother. “I came a few days early. Thought I'd see off Gisburne before going. God knows I'm no friend to him, but I don't envy him the Saracen hordes. _That_ ferocious lot—Robert?”  
      The apple has fallen from the Sheriff's hand and hit the floor, the fruit smashing with a soft thud. Robert can feel the colour draining from his own cheeks, the fearful numbness that hastens a healthy pulse. He rises from his chair and moves to the window, looking upon his land for the first time since Robin Hood's demise three days before.  
      It is bright with verdure; a soft wind willows through the window. The breeze touches his arms through the garment of light linen that girds him. The liquor that lingers on his lips is honey-sweet; a dismal dread grips his heart as he opens his hands before his eyes, releases the mildly alcoholic fragrance of overripe apple. Slowly he turns and stares at his well-dressed brother, who is obviously prepared to begin the pilgrimage announced seven months prior. A journey to commence after _Midsummer_ —  
      ( _“How soon do you_ flee _Nottingham for the Holy Land?”_ )  
      “God, _no!_ ” Robert cries, barely realising his own shout as he heaves open the door. Hugo calls after him like an imbecile; let him, Christ, _let_ him! The Sheriff stalks through the corridors like a prowling beast; he breaks into a run when his clipping steps prove unequal to his agitation. Frantically he tracks through the halls, until finally emerging into an insultingly balmy afternoon, crossing the wall-walk and nearly toppling himself over the merlons in discoordinate haste. His destination soon rises in his vision, and he doesn't bother with modesty or even courtesy as he bursts through the entrance.  
      Gisburne whirls at the invasion, wild eyes calming as he recognises the intruder. “My lord?”  
      De Rainault barely registers the disarrayed chamber, though some small voice in his mind cries a curse against the strewn possessions, the cloth-wrapped and twine-tied bundles. He seizes Gisburne's arm, forces its strength to steady him for a moment. God, he has run here with barely a notion of what to say, how to ask what he needs without suspicion! But his mind is quickened by his predicament; fitfully he tugs the knight towards the writing-desk.  
      “Gisburne, I need you..." He clears his throat, puts his husky voice back under control before beginning again. "I need you to write for me.”  
      Just once he wishes for Guy to feign understanding or at least disguise his confusion; just once he needs a shield before him, a controlled presence to ward him from imminent disaster. But what he receives is the mindless repetition of a poppet.  
      “Me?” Guy asks.  
      “Just _do_ it, Gisburne!”  
      Obediently the deputy goes to his desk; he is none too steady as he lowers himself into the chair, nor are his hands altogether composed beneath his master's frenetic scrutiny. But de Rainault ignores the knight's discomfiture, selecting for Gisburne some small scrap of parchment and hovering over him as he uncaps a seldom-used inkpot. And Guy, to his credit, responds to Robert's distress with a soldier's efficiency, hurrying to tip a bit of wine into the well, then mixing dark fluid with a clumsy fingertip after a cursory search of the desk reveals no more suitable implement. Still, it is a small eternity to the Sheriff before Gisburne grasps a quill and looks up expectantly.  
      “Record the date,” de Rainault commands.  
      “The...the date—“  
      “The _date,_ Gisburne! I don’t order you to echo every word I speak! A simple fact, the _date!_ Written as though you signed a letter.”  
      Gisburne swallows any further protest, and with exasperating delay, he uses the thin ink and ratty quill to scratch characters carefully upon the page, while de Rainault grips the back of the chair and shuts his eyes. The seat's solidity brings Robert small comfort in remembrance: he'd had the thing repaired and fortified, even gilded a touch, so that it no longer wobbles and even resembles the property of a deputy Sheriff instead of some peasant discard. He'd returned it to this chamber on the knight's saint-day, the twelfth of September — two months before, a mere two months...  
      Finally Guy completes his scribing and powders the result, but before he can shake the page clear, Robert seizes his wrist. For premonition rises within the Sheriff like a terrible disease, speeding his breath until he fears collapse or worse. It may be that some unholy knowledge lies within that simple line. It could be that this is the last sane moment he will know.  
      And so Robert flutters with foreboding, and his composure is a mask he cannot long maintain. He desires, he _needs_ ; heedless of the risk, he touches tremulous fingers to Guy’s cheek — his Gisburne, that lone May Eve for which he would have banished the very Sun — then covers the knight's befuddled pout with his own lips.  
      If Guy is provoked by his liege's trespass, he pardons the offense with merciful speed; Robert finds himself seized and attended, with more than a vassal’s due deference. And in that moment, when he stands guarded from grief by his knight's arms, a violent impulse of thought obliterates any defeat the Sheriff might have been inclined to admit.  
      _I would kill us both before losing you._  
      The shock of that unsummoned folly breaks the Sheriff's daze. He releases the deputy and reaches for the finished scribework; a flurry of dust scatters as he lifts the document. Without looking back, he flies forth, pulling the door shut against the knight's inevitable questioning.

***

      He has shouted the servants away, for there must be no witnesses to his witlessness; his hands shake so badly that, for several moments too long, he cannot work out how to lock his own chamber. Finally he fumbles the handle into place, and when the room is securely sealed, he crosses to his desk, determined to examine two pieces of evidence and so prove his own reason to himself: Guy's inscription, so recently commanded, and his own letter to Hugo, written—  
      _—three days ago. On Samhain. It is mid afternoon, the third of November. The year of our Lord twelve hundred and one!_  
      Three letters he'd scribed, three days before; one still remains—  
      ( _—three-in-one, God, the three-in-one!_ )  
      Shaking his head at his own feverish folly, he unlocks and reaches into the lowermost case of his writing-desk. He must stop this absurdity, confirm for himself what he already _knows_ , and then chase away his foolishness with wine and _not_ mead, not the honey-sweet savour of summer! And so he ignores the unsettling sensations that drive him, his unbalanced suspicion that the liminal spaces between lines of ink hold some secret beyond imagining; instead, he impatiently unties the letter to Hugo, scribed and stored so recently. _Recently,_ damn his brother, and nowhere near the yearly fête of an obscure Cornish monk, nor the senseless loss of Nottingham's deputy—  
      ( _“Au oult de juen.”_ )  
      The clouds that glutted the land with rain had been merely a manifestation of the art magical, a weather-working wrought by a Saxon cult-object. By all of the Laws of season and harvest, of history and memory, it is impossible, _impossible_ , for spring rains to fall upon an October afternoon! And so he smiles as he holds open the scroll, reading there the confirmation he expects, the verified record of his own sanity: _the thirty-first day of October, A.D. 1201._ The third of November it is indeed, an unseasonably warm day, and a thousand possible explanations exist for the rest! But unease pricks him yet, still unsoothed.  
      ( _“Summer falls, and Winter reigns. Yet beware...”_ )  
      He reaches for the document that Guy has penned. Oh, Hugo may well intend some sort of trick; he wouldn't put it past the hypocritical cleric—  
      ( _“Saint Neot's, Robert. Pilgrimage. The new church. Have I jostled your memory?”_  
      _But Hugo requested an escort, “to the shrine of Saint Neot, for the holy-feast to commence the thirty-first of July,” he remembers!_ )  
      —but not Gisburne. The deputy has neither the wits nor the will; given his evil intention of departure, he lacks even the _incentive_ to drive his master to madness.  
      Robert grapples with the fresh page, carefully aligning his deputy’s marks to the signs he has earlier scribed. Sunlight falls in a piercing ray over his hands, as though offering its aid to his task. The _sun..._  
      ( _“I am the Sun, my bearer the Moon.” The Sun is eternal; the Moon perishes, rises reborn. The Hunter's power, granted His Son...God, no!_ )  
      He trembles now like a leaf driven by a ruthless wind, and Guy's handwriting is atrocious, Christ!—  
      —and its message cannot be mistaken, though his eyes cling to the work of his own hands, though he reads again and again the words he knows: _By my hand, the thirty-first day of October, A.D. 1201._  
      _Only three days past_ , he pleads, to Powers whose inattention he has too long known, _it is the third of November. The third of November, the third, the third..._  
      But the incantation can no longer keep him from the Hunter's trap.  
      ( _“The time is near.”)_  
      The shock of it is lightning into his senses.  
      _(“Time? What time?”_ )  
      _**The eighteenth day of June, A.D. 1202.**_  
      And it is not the fallen Oak, but _he_ who is felled by this final bolt, the vengeance of a grieving God—  
      ( _"Yet beware, Holly King, for no season endures..."_ )  
      —which unmakes the very Laws that support him, that keep the earth still beneath him!  
      Robert de Rainault can endure no more; to his knees he stumbles, his face held in pallid hands, his own words scourging him beyond his ability to stand.  
      ( _"Show me its power, Stag. I would **know** what I claim."_ )  
      _Time._  
      ( _"What binds the hunter to the hunted?"_ )  
      _The arrow — the Arrow upon which the Wheel turns!_  
      ( _“Who is the greatest enemy?”_ )  
      _Time, Stag, damn you! **Time!**_  
      It is his last coherent thought, before he loses all to senseless screams.


End file.
